Richard Caborn: I beg to move,
	That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:
	Most Gracious Sovereign,
	We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom and Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.
	Mr. Speaker— [Interruption.] That is the formalities over with. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure, after some 24 years as a Member of this House, to have been invited to move the Queen's Speech. It is also nice to address a full Chamber— [Interruption.] —or a nearly full Chamber, to be correct. The last time I addressed a full Chamber, I was standing at the Dispatch Box; I was recommending the casino advisory panel's— [Interruption.]. That was neither the pinnacle of my parliamentary career, nor one of my most productive speeches. I hope that the House will accept my contribution today with a little more sympathy than it did on that occasion. A few weeks ago, I thought I would be riding off into the sunset of my political career rather than moving the Queen's Speech. How wrong people can be. I think it was Harold Wilson who said that seven days in politics is like a lifetime. That is probably true.
	There are many reasons why it is a privilege and a pleasure to move the Queen's Speech, and I should like to refer to a couple of them. First, I must mention my family, and particularly my mum. She is 91—and, thanks to the NHS, she has just had a little knee replacement operation. She is still a very active member of the Co-op guild and party and a strong Methodist, and she is also strong on temperance—her son has not quite copied her in that respect. The Methodist minister keeps sending me messages via my mum about the legislation I was recently involved in putting on the statute book: liquor licensing, 24-hour opening and modernisation of gambling—we would have needed only to chuck sex on to that list to have cracked it. The young Methodist minister keeps asking, "What's gone wrong with his Methodist upbringing?" I have, however, sent the message back to him that I have every confidence in the Methodist mission to combat and control those perceived evils—I do say perceived evils. It is a good job that he did not find out that I also had horse racing and greyhound racing in my portfolio of ministerial responsibilities.
	The second reason why it is a privilege and a pleasure to move the Queen's Speech is my constituency of Sheffield, Central—the constituency I was born in, educated in, and where I worked until I was elected as an MEP in 1979. I am fiercely proud of the city of Sheffield. I left school at the age of 15 and, like many of my contemporaries, I went into an engineering apprenticeship, of which I was very proud. I did not go to university, but spent three nights a week at night school before moving on to day release in further education and then to a technical college—Sheffield polytechnic, which is now the fantastic Sheffield Hallam university. Apprenticeships served us well, and I am pleased that apprenticeship reform is a part of the Queen's Speech. I welcome that; it will serve the nation well, too. I genuinely hope, Mr. Speaker, that people like you and me, with our backgrounds, will always have a place here. If this House ever becomes stuffed full of professional politicians, it will be a sad day for the House and the nation.  [ Interruption. ] There is an old saying, "If the cap fits, wear it."
	Sheffield, Central has a great industrial history. It has played a role for this nation in war and peace, particularly during the first and second world wars. Even when Hitler tried to rip the industrial heart out of our city, it continued to support our forces with the armaments they needed to fight for freedom and democracy, and against fascism. Its industrial contribution in peacetime has been considerable. For example, it gave stainless steel to the world when Brearley produced the first molt in 1913. It made a contribution to the aerospace industry when it helped Rolls-Royce to put the most advanced aerospace engine into the skies—the RB211—from which the Trent engine derived. It was a decade ahead of its competitors. The city also played a role in getting Concorde into the skies. Without Sheffield's forging and casting, exploration for North sea oil would not have been as successful. The energy industry benefited considerably from Sheffield's engineering and materials development, whether in the field of oil, gas, renewables or the nuclear sector.
	The challenges of climate change are rightly referred to in the Queen's Speech, and I believe that security of energy supply and a sound energy policy are absolutely crucial to our future. I believe that we have to bite the bullet sooner rather than later in acknowledging the role of nuclear power in the energy portfolio, not just here in the UK but around the world.
	Many hon. Members will know that Sheffield is a great city of sport. It has the oldest football team in the world, Sheffield FC, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Indeed, the Prime Minister sent a very kind letter to a dinner that the club held a few weeks ago. Sheffield has been named the first city of sport and, along with the English Institute of Sport, it boasts some of the finest sports facilities anywhere in the country. It also has the Mecca of football: Bramall Lane, the home of Sheffield United. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) may not like this, but the city boasts two professional teams: Sheffield United and Sheffield United reserves.
	As the Prime Minister knows, we have our differences on football. He is a great Raith Rovers fan, so obviously, like me, he always supports an underdog such as Sheffield United. When we were at Wembley the other day for the Germany match against England I was ribbing him about a great defeat that took place at Wembley a few years ago—Scotland 3, England 9 in 1961. I reminded my right hon. Friend, and yes he did smile, even on that day.
	During the last 10 years Sheffield has been transformed. I would like to acknowledge the work of the Labour leader of our city council, Jan Wilson, and its chief executive, Sir Bob Kerslake. In the dark days of 1997, Sheffield had high unemployment, crumbling schools and second-rate housing. The social fabric of the city was under severe pressure, and families were experiencing second and third-generation unemployment.
	I want to tell a little story—and this is a true story. In 1997, I was proud to become a Minister in a Labour Government and I was given the regeneration portfolio. I called a meeting in Sheffield, in the Manor estate, in the middle of my constituency. That estate had been condemned in the national press as one of the worst in the country. Civil servants from the region and representing national portfolios were at the meeting. It was progressing in this church on a wet Wednesday afternoon, when all of a sudden the big oak door of the church creaked open, and a little snotty-nosed kid put his head round the door and shouted, "Anybody want to buy a microwave?" I said, "Come here!" The civil servant from the Treasury said, "What was all that, Minister?" I said, "That is the redistribution of wealth that stands in for the taxation system. It's called crime, and if we do not do something about it, it will happen in many inner cities, and it will get worse not better."
	I am pleased to say that Sheffield is a city of opportunity. It is a modern university city with two great universities and teaching and children's hospitals that I believe to be among the best in the world. It is a city of opportunity, but for that little lad who put his head round the door, it is also a city of hope, thanks to what has been done over the past few years.
	In fact, Sheffield has been so successful that it has brought many people in, and I have a new political neighbour in Sheffield, Hallam. He has been there only two years but he has been so filled with confidence that he has decided to make a bid for the leadership of the Lib Dems. If the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) wants some advice, I am a little bit of an expert, having run a few election campaigns for my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). It took JP three attempts to get to the deputy leadership of the Labour party—I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can wait that long, but I wish him well in his leadership bid.  [Interruption.] I gather that that sentiment does not gain universal acceptance.
	In the past 20 years, I have had opportunities to serve on many Committees, perhaps none so challenging and rewarding as chairing the Select Committee on Trade and Industry in the early 1990s. Its reports in that period are still cited in many publications as authoritative and well presented. I want to put it on record that the servants of the House, especially the Clerks to the Committees, are the most talented and conscientious and have the utmost integrity. We should always respect and appreciate their services. Serving as a Minister for 10 years has taught me the dedication, value and quality of our civil servants. In the adversarial system in which politics operates in this country, we should appreciate, respect and be proud of public service.
	It is a great honour to propose the first Loyal Address under my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I have worked with him since I was elected to the House in 1983. We worked together on the Opposition Front Bench in the 1980s and developed many policies such as regionalisation, in which he and I have a great interest. He was also an active supporter of the anti-apartheid movement. Indeed, in those heady days of the 1980s and 1990s, working with my right hon. Friend was like riding a rollercoaster. His office was the most untidy that I have ever seen. His coffee cups were not washed for days on end and I used to say, "Gordon, for goodness' sake, wash the coffee cups out." He was always demanding.  [Interruption.] Someone behind me asks, "Didn't he say, 'Get on with it, Richard'?" My right hon. Friend is always driving forward. When he offered me a post, which I was proud to accept, as ambassador for the World cup 2018, he said, "Richard, it's a great job; you've got the credentials, the telephone book and the zeal to go out there. Oh, by the way, there's no salary." In his thrifty style, my right hon. Friend yet again got the old trade union official to work for nowt.
	Many people have commented on my right hon. Friend's character and style but the words of P. G. Wodehouse sum it up:
	"It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine."
	That little ray of sunshine comes through in the most hard-working, conscientious person whom I have worked with over the years that I have been here. I hope that the Loyal Address will be the first of many under his premiership.
	The Queen's Speech refers to the health of the nation. I believe that that and climate change are the two biggest issues that face our nation and many others. As Sports Minister, one of my proudest achievements was delivering, through the school sports partnerships, an increase of more than 60 per cent. in sport and physical activity in our schools in the past six years. That means that nearly 4 million hours a week more of sport and physical activity are undertaken every week in our schools now than happened in 2001. That, coupled with more playing fields being opened than closed in the past two years, is starting to change the culture of our nation in the right direction.
	In the past six years, it has been very pleasing to be part of a team that brought the 2012 Olympics to London. It was great to see the nation get behind the bid and when, in July 2005, the result was London, we saw the nation rejoice in a way which, I think, we had not seen before.
	I have two little stories of how that bid was won. The first involved David Beckham. London 2012 came to me and said, "Can you get David Beckham to go to Singapore? It'd be great—remember when the 50 kids walked in and Beckham was with them?" It was absolutely great to set up that part of the bidding process. I said, "Fine". I talked to Sven—he was then the manager of the England team and very close to David, who was the captain of the England team. He was very generous and came in to see me. We discussed whether David could go—it was David's wedding anniversary on the Monday and we made the bid on the Wednesday. Sven said that he would do what he could, but by the way, could I meet Nancy to talk about her charity, Truce International—so, there was a quid pro quo. The rest is history. Beckham went to Singapore and did a fantastic job, along with Tony Blair, Seb Coe, my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Olympics and many of that team, both then and before that. I pay tribute to what Sven did in delivering that part of the bargain, and I delivered my part, as well.
	The other person who supported us and was helpful in giving us kind words of encouragement—I hope hon. Members will listen to this, particularly the Leader of the Opposition, because what I am going to say is important in terms of what we did for our bid and how people can return—was Nelson Mandela. As I travelled down to South Africa to see Nelson Mandela, I reflected on 20 or so years in the House and on my association with the anti-apartheid movement and with Nelson Mandela. It was remarkable that he was denounced by prominent people in the House as a terrorist, for being part of the leadership of the African National Congress. I say this genuinely: we should always be careful to distinguish between terrorists and freedom fighters.
	Before one of Mandela's first visits to this country in the 1990s, after serving 27 years on Robben island, I was told by the secretary of the all-party South Africa group that it would not be advisable for him to visit the House of Commons. However, as a good trade union official—as you know, Mr. Speaker—I did not take no for an answer. We negotiated and we got a compromise, which saw him enter via the back door of Westminster Hall and after that attend a meeting in the Grand Committee Room—it was a fantastic meeting, but the conditions were no TV, no cameras. What was remarkable on that day was that six Caribbean lasses who worked in the Members' Tea Room wanted so desperately to meet Nelson Mandela that as he left—yes, through the back door of Westminster Hall—they formed a line of honour and he hugged and kissed every one of them. They will remember that for the rest of their lives.
	To roll the clock forward six years, what happened on Mandela's first visit was a far cry from 11 July 1996, when he came on a state visit and entered Westminster Hall through the front door, with a fanfare of trumpets, to speak to some of those who had denounced him as head of a terrorist organisation but a few years previously. Times have changed and they have changed for the better. I say that sincerely to Opposition Members.
	I finish on this message. It is a message that Mandela gave to me after signing the flag. He said, "Richard, I really want to thank you and the British Government for something that we believed would never happen in Africa." That a single Government could make such a difference to a continent—the African continent. What the current Prime Minister did when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, alongside the Blair African mission, was to persuade international financial institutions that the restructuring and rescheduling of debt is a key to relieving African poverty. Mandela said that thousands of people are alive today because of that action, that countries such as Zambia are becoming more economically viable and that the future for Africa is considerably brighter than it was a decade ago.
	In government, we can make a difference, and we will make a difference in this country. Let us always remember: we can make a difference throughout the world, as well.

Dawn Butler: It is an honour and a privilege, not only for me but for my constituents in Brent, that I have been asked to second the Loyal Address. I must admit that, when I got the message to call the Chief Whip, my first reaction was, "Uh-oh, what have I done now? He's caught me." Then, when I was told that this honour was to be bestowed upon me, I thought, "Uh-oh, he has caught me!" However, my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip has such a nice way of putting things that, even if he asked me to sit on the Crossrail Bill, I would probably be inclined to say yes— [ Laughter. ] Oh dear! I fear that I have made a rod for my own back.
	It is truly an honour to be asked to speak today. It is also an honour to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn). Like me, he is a former trade union official, and we have an awful lot in common. We have also shared great moments cheering and shouting at football matches at the amazing new Butler stadium, also known on the streets as Wembley stadium. One of my most surreal moments was when I was travelling on the Jubilee line from Westminster to Wembley with him and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. When we got on to the train, I was so caught up in my own excitement that I thought everyone was looking at me. This really cute guy started to walk towards me, and my heart started to beat a little faster. Then he pushed me to one side and asked for the PM's autograph.
	Many hon. Members may know that Brent has one of the new modern wonders of the world. It is not Dollis Hill house, which is used as a hospital for world war one and world war two soldiers; nor is it the largest temple outside India, which is also in my constituency, or the multicultural mosque, or even the house where Bob Marley used to live. Amazing though all those buildings are, it is, in fact, Butler stadium. Hon. Members might want to visit my constituency to see the many wonders that are scattered all around, and I hope that they will do so—but please do not ask me for football tickets, as refusal often offends. If you want football tickets, your best bet is probably to ask my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central—he is our ambassador for the 2018 World Cup, after all. I am sure that he will have fond memories of the times that we shared at Wembley, and that he shares my hope that someone in my constituency will help to bring football home for GB—the country and the Prime Minister.
	I like to think that I am a fairly modern chick, so when the opportunity arose to sit on the Modernisation Committee, I jumped at the chance. I am not quite sure whether the Committee helps with modernisation that much, but it has helped me to understand some universal truths: men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and some Members of Parliament are from a planet not yet discovered. The modernisation measures set out in the Queen's Speech have given me new hope. The Queen often awards OBEs and MBEs regardless of colour, creed, religion or class. As we are on the theme of modernising, perhaps we could have a word change? "Order of British Excellence" or "Merit of British Excellence" would sum up the people around the country and in my constituency beautifully.
	Brent, South is one of the most diverse constituencies in the UK, and, although I might have some of the poorest wards in the country, I can testify that the constituency is full of richness and ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things every day. I am glad that the Queen has acknowledged in her speech the rising aspirations of the many, and not the few, through the education and skills Bill and the new housing and regeneration Bill.
	I was elected to the House in 2005, and it was one of the proudest moments for me and my family. I promised, at my first meeting in the school hall, that I would be the voice of young people and that, when I stood in this place, I would make sure that their voices were heard. That is why I am really proud that the Government have announced that unclaimed assets can be used to improve young people's services across the UK. More than 700 places will be created—more than one for every constituency—so we shall all have something to look forward to. That will ensure that young people in every constituency will have a place to go and something to do.
	I remember addressing a group of young people, and one of them saying to me, "Why are you so interested in youth issues?" Before I could answer, a young guy jumped up and said, "Because she used to be young once." I think it was at that same school that I wore a bright orange suit, and a young girl with tears in her eyes said, "Miss, do all MPs have to dress like that?" I might have been offended—after all, it was quite an expensive suit—but it is time that we stopped demonising young people.
	There is constant talk about gangs.
	I witnessed a gang mentality just a month ago, when a group of mainly white men heckled and jeered—at times in unison—and its leader started stabbing his middle finger in the direction of the other side. He went on angrily to goad the other side, which duly responded with insults and jeers to match. I felt inclined to join in: after all, this was Prime Minister's questions! We should be careful how we label people. Youth week, as outlined in "Aim high for young people: a ten year strategy", will help the media, the public and politicians to gain greater understanding of young people and their culture.
	We need people to understand that politics matters. When our Prime Minister took action to secure debt relief, it was a question not of some figures on a balance sheet but of shifting the balance on the scales of justice. He moved the balance in favour of the poorest, but some debt cannot so easily be written off. One such debt is the enslavement of 13 million Africans. As we approach the end of the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade legislation, I know that our legacy will be to teach an objective history as part of the curriculum. I hope that we will commemorate slavery each year, as we do the holocaust.
	The national armed forces memorial in Staffordshire, which the Prime Minister visited to pay his respects to all who lost their lives in past and present wars, makes this year's remembrance very special. I wear my poppy with pride, as all hon. Members do.
	We must also remember all our young people who have needlessly lost their lives to gun and knife crime. The proposals outlined today will have an impact and help to make our communities safer. I have seen the youth opportunity fund and the youth capital fund work in Brent. I have seen the difference that they make and I believe that my constituents would want me to take this opportunity to bring to the House's attention the energy and creativity of Brent's young people. I have seen the work commitment, the dedication and the pride on young people's faces when their projects have been completed.
	I have spoken to many kids on the streets, who say that they want things to do, places to go and an education that will give them a good job. Imagine my surprise when the Youth Parliament, which I helped to set up, came to Westminster and voted to stay on at school beyond 16. When I was at school, it was not so much me wanting to leave as the teachers hoping that I would! They could not think of a profession for someone so mouthy and argumentative. Well, here I am!
	For the first time, we have had a pre-legislative draft, which has helped us to prepare for today. It means that we can quickly progress to implementation of the health and social care Bill; it means that we can commit to continued investment in the NHS, which is 60 next year; and it shows that we have real belief in the aspirations of all the people of this country.
	We have so much to do and we must not shy away from the great work that Labour has done for our country. We have lifted 600,000 children out of poverty—19,700 of them in Brent alone. The minimum wage now stands at more than £5 an hour, the winter fuel benefit in Brent is £11,600—and I could go on and on.  [Interruption.] Tempting as it is to go on, I would like to end.
	Ten years ago, as a trade union official, I had colleagues who travelled in car boots just to get here to speak to Members and to recruit new ones. I witnessed first hand how a Labour Government changed people's lives for the better. We stopped riding in car boots and finally walked in through the front door. It is a memory that will stay with me for ever. My members, some of whom were earning only £2.50 an hour, felt empowered by having their trade union official by their side. I was a young idealistic activist trying to change the world. Although I hope I have not changed that much in 10 years—beyond a few grey hairs and a dodgy orange suit, perhaps—I am very grateful that this country has changed.
	I am one of the youngest Members in the House and I hope that young people watching our proceedings today are inspired not just by our democracy, but by the sense that they, too, can be part of it. If anyone hearing our speeches today or reading about them tomorrow questions whether politics works or whether it matters, I say to them that cynicism did not create the welfare state, indifference did not introduce the minimum wage or bring peace to Northern Ireland, and apathy did not end debt slavery for the world's poorest people or give our most valuable pensioners dignity in their retirement. It was politics that did all that. That is the difference that politics makes. The strength of self-belief, the dignity of truth and the engagement of politics can turn slaves into free people. I dedicate this speech to my ancestors and all those who gave their tomorrows for our todays. I commend the Gracious Speech to the House.

David Cameron: Let me start by paying tribute to the firefighters who lost their lives in the tragedy in Warwickshire on Friday evening. It was a reminder of the great risks that our emergency services take on our behalf all the time. The thoughts and prayers of the whole House will be with their families.
	I congratulate the proposer and the seconder of the Loyal Address. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Century—sorry, I meant Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn); his speech did not feel like a century—spoke powerfully about his constituency and the city that he loves. When he made the case against professional politicians, he united the whole House against both Front Benches, which was a great achievement.
	The right hon. Gentleman was a popular and successful Minister for Sport, but things did not start quite that well. Few of us will forget—I hope that he will not mind too much if I remind hon. Members—the Radio Five Live quiz with which he launched his career. For greater accuracy, I have obtained a copy. He was asked,
	"Can you name the four players in today's semi-finals of the Stella Artois?"
	He replied,
	"um...errr...Henman. I can't, no."
	He was asked,
	"Can you name three jockeys who will be riding at Royal Ascot this week?"
	He replied:
	"No. I know nothing about horse racing at all."
	Then he was asked:
	"Can you name three European golfers playing in the US Open?"
	At this stage, the transcript says, there was an "audible sigh". Then he said,
	"uummm, uurrrr...No. I haven't been watching the golf at all."
	Next he was asked:
	"Who is the captain of the British Lions?"
	His replied:
	"Don't know that one either. I'm terrible this morning."
	The  Daily Mail—charitable, as we all know—ran a quiz the next day entitled, "Are you dumb enough to be Sports Minister?" To his great credit, however, the right hon. Gentleman brushed all that aside and persevered. He is a shining example of how there are times when one has to ignore the press and just get on with the job.
	As the right hon. Gentleman reminded us, he will also be remembered for launching and continually relaunching the career of another much-loved national political figure. He ran his deputy leadership campaign in 1992, his leadership campaign in 1994 and his deputy leadership campaign in the same year. I refer, of course, to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). The right hon. Gentleman's determination to stick with unfashionable causes does him a huge amount of credit. No doubt that is why the Prime Minister asked him to propose the Loyal Address today, but he did a superb job.
	The hon. Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler) made an excellent speech. It was not just witty and incisive—it did not just put the Modernisation Committee firmly on the map—but passionate, and I think that she will be and is a great ambassador for this place, in spite of our political differences. She might not welcome this, but we do have something in common. She has spoken positively about young people—she did so again today—and has told us to listen
	"to the voice behind the hood".
	I am not sure that she needs any advice from me after that speech, but following my experience with the H-word, "hoodie", my advice would be, in all candour, "leave it there".
	Her predecessor as Member of Parliament for Brent, South, Paul Boateng, famously said on the night of his election,
	"today, Brent South—tomorrow, Soweto."
	I understand that her ambitions are slightly different: she is in a fight to the death with her Liberal Democrat neighbour for the new Brent seat being created by boundary changes. So, for her, it is more a case of "today, Brent South—tomorrow, Brent Central." Many of us have fought Liberal Democrats and know the appalling depths to which they will stoop—[Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] As she has just found out, she will have support on both sides of the House as she continues her fight.
	The proposer and the seconder upheld the best traditions of the House, and I congratulate them on their speeches.
	I pay tribute to Piara Khabra, who died earlier this year. He led an extraordinary life. Born in the Punjab in the 1920s, he fought in the second world war against the Japanese. He marched for Gandhi and Nehru, taking part in the great struggle for Indian independence. Having come to Britain, he was elected to the House as a pensioner. Piara Khabra served his constituents and his country well, and he will, I believe, be remembered fondly on both sides of the House.
	Another Member of the House left us recently. I refer, of course, to the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. I thought I had better mention him in case the current Prime Minister omitted to do so in his speech.
	Although Tony Blair achieved great mastery of this place, he could not wait to get out of here. Many have asked "What was the hurry?" I think I have found the answer. There is a new book—I am sure it will be available in the Library—by Dr. Anthony Seldon. On page 330—

Gordon Brown: I am sure that the whole House will wish to send, as the Leader of the Opposition did, our condolences to the families and friends of the four firemen who tragically lost their lives over the weekend. Being in the fire service means that they never know what moment they will be called upon for extraordinary and heroic action, and the British people are privileged to have been served by firemen who showed such courage and dedication.
	Let us also remember all those who serve our country as members of our armed forces in every theatre around the world and thank them for their dedication, service and courage, too.
	It has become a noble tradition to remember Members who have served the House and who have died during the year, and I am sure that all Members will also want to join the Leader of the Opposition in remembering Piara Khabra. He was Member of Parliament for Ealing, Southall from 1992 until his death, and his life was an extraordinary journey that began in abject poverty in India, led him as a young man to enlist in the fight against fascism, volunteering in the Indian army, then to work as a teacher in London and then as a councillor and to live on to become the oldest Member of the House of Commons. It was his experience of poverty in India that made it his lifelong work to fight injustice wherever and whenever he found it.
	For too many Members on both sides of the House these days, a large public meeting tends to be in single figures of attendees. Indeed, I recollect, with embarrassment and some humility, my first public meeting as an MP in 1983. I had just one attendee and a chairman who wanted to go off to another meeting. But such was the measure of Piara's popularity and organisation that when Piara Khabra invited someone to his constituency to address a meeting, hundreds—indeed, on one occasion, thousands—turned out. He was a good man. He served his community and his country well. He graced the House with his presence. His life was a life well lived in the service of others. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."]
	I want also to thank the proposer and seconder of the motion today. It was said of Lord Roseberry, when he was a member of the Government in the 19th century, that when a Cabinet meeting clashed with a race meeting, he always chose the race meeting. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) has managed to find a better way of enjoying both sport and politics, as he served as Sports Minister and is now the ambassador to the 2018 World cup.
	The Leader of the Opposition reminded the House of the less than auspicious start of my right hon. Friend when he was asked five questions on Radio 5 in 2001. In fact, in the same month in 2001, he was joined in another less than auspicious start: that of the former Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. He went out on that occasion to address the press after his first European Council, and he started his press conference by saying how pleased he was to be in Brussels. It was pointed out to him that he was actually in Luxembourg. Both Ministers went on to enjoy long and distinguished service and continue to do so. It just shows that a few difficult headlines in a new job can be safely overcome.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central, and I have a great deal in common, though we are from different parts of the country. We have teetotal temperance and Presbyterian families. We also share a love of football. He rightly reminded me of England beating Scotland 9-3 in 1961. That result was so humiliating for the Scottish people that the Scottish goalkeeper emigrated to Australia. Even 30 years later, when he asked whether it was safe to come home to Scotland, he was told "No." He ended his career as a cabaret singer down under. Let me thank my right hon. Friend for his tireless work, together with Tony Blair and my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), to secure the Olympics for Britain, and for the work that he is now doing to ensure that the next decade can be one of the great sporting decades for our country. There is not just the Olympics in 2012, but possibly the Commonwealth games in 2014, the Rugby world cup in 2015, and the football World cup in 2018. We will owe him a great debt of gratitude for his work in achieving those great sporting events.
	Having heard my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler) speak, I can understand why she was described in one journal as the most promising feminist under 35. I understand that she organised her first sit-in at the age of 11. She set up a homework club, which she ran, in her teens. She also ran an after-school club from her father's van. Her popularity and success is built on her effectiveness as an organiser and as a constituency MP, and not least on her passion, which she talked about today, for building better youth facilities for teenagers. I believe that she has that rare gift of empathy and approachability that makes politics more accessible and attractive to the young people whom she talked about. Her very success, not only here today but in her career, explains why we must continue in the ongoing struggle to make this House truly reflect all the people whom we represent. Having heard her speech, I was struck by how much further we still have to go. This morning, I asked someone in Downing street to check this, and my memory was right: when I was elected in 1983, there were 59 male Members of Parliament named John, 30 male MPs called David, and only 23 women MPs. Even now, we have a long way to go to improve representation and improve the facilities here for parents and children. She spoke with passion today, and I am confident, on the basis of what she has said, that she has a great deal to contribute, not just to our future debates, but to the future of our country.
	I will deal with all the specific issues raised by the Leader of the Opposition as I go through the legislative programme, but I must say that he may have been good on jokes, but he was pretty bad on policy. When he tried to claim credit for flexible working being his idea, I quickly checked up on the facts. He voted against maternity leave, he voted against paternity pay, and initially he voted against the first right to flexible working in this House.
	The Queen's Speech refers to the Climate Change Bill, which makes us the first Government in the world to impose legally binding targets for a sustainable environment. The Leader of the Opposition wishes to say that the measures in the Queen's Speech are simply short-term. The Climate Change Bill is a transformatory act, and we are the first country in the world that will legislate in that way. On energy, housing, pensions, education, work-life balance, citizenship and anti-terrorism measures, the central purpose of the legislative programme is to make the right long-term changes to prepare and equip our country for the future, and to meet the rising aspirations of the British people. I will tell the right hon. Gentleman the point of what we are doing, and the point of the Government. To ensure that all our young people have the skills that we need to compete in the global marketplace, we are proposing the first legislative Bill in 60 years to raise the education leaving age in this country. Two million teenagers a year will benefit, and I hope that all parties will share that ambition with us when it comes to the votes.

John Butterfill: I was very interested to hear about that proposal, but will the right hon. Gentleman clarify something? If someone has a cornershop, and employs a shop assistant, will the proprietor be obliged to set up a pension scheme for that shop assistant?

Gordon Brown: There will be special arrangements for small businesses, but the principle behind the provision is, first, the automatic enrolment of people in pension schemes and, secondly, the requirement for employers to make a contribution. I hope that the Conservative party, which said a year ago that it supported the pensions legislation, will not resile, as it has suggested in the newspapers today, from supporting it in future. Again, the Leader of the Opposition was virtually silent on the future of pensions.
	To help families who work hard to meet their responsibilities to young children in a world where two parents going to work should not mean the sacrifice of family life, we will build on paternity and maternity leave. We will set up a review to determine how to extend the right to request flexible working, not just to the parents of younger children but to the parents of older children as well. To increase protection for vulnerable workers, we will legislate to strengthen the enforcement of the national minimum wage and sanctions against failure to pay it so that every employer meets their obligations to provide decent pay, as we tackle exploitation of the work force.
	Public transport matters to millions of people. To improve bus services, which remain a lifeline in many communities, we will legislate to end the free-for-all that left the passenger and the public behind. We will give local authorities more control over the availability, frequency and reliability of bus services. Alongside that, for the first time there will be free national bus travel for pensioners and the disabled from April 2008.
	We have already talked about the needs of young people in our communities. To ensure that young people in our communities have somewhere to go, for the first time we will legislate to enable the transfer of unclaimed assets of financial institutions to pay for youth centres, among other improvements, in every community in the country.
	We will match the Climate Change Bill, with an energy Bill. We will also legislate to ensure sustainable and secure energy for the long-term future of our country.
	The first duty of the Government is stability, security and the defence of the country, so the anti-terrorism Bill contained within this programme will address the continuing threat of extremists in a way that continues the measured response that we have taken to the terrorist events of June last year. We will publish a national security strategy and, reflecting the statement of the director general of MI5 yesterday and the broad consensus that a security response alone is not sufficient to meet those threats, we will publish new proposals for winning the battle of hearts and minds.
	Whether in relation to terrorism, immigration or the continuing evolution of the rights and responsibilities of the individual, the need to define British citizenship more clearly is evident. The importance of that is such that in advance of publishing our draft citizenship Bill, we will make a prior statement setting out our proposals for consultation and debate.
	Foreign and defence affairs will be the subject of a debate later in this Queen's Speech debate, but ahead of that I can confirm to the House—the Leader of the Opposition asked me about this—that as our forces move to an overwatch role, provincial Iraqi control will be established in the Basra provinces in the next month.
	In the coming weeks, I will make a statement to the House about Afghanistan, about our 8,000 troops who are there, about the efforts at reconciliation and conflict resolution and about our proposals for development, which the Leader of the Opposition rightly mentioned—we are discussing those issues at the moment. As I have said, our troops and our armed forces continue to serve the country with distinction and with courage.
	As recent events have unfolded in Pakistan, we have strongly urged the restoration of constitutional order and a commitment from the Government of Pakistan that elections will be held on schedule in January. We have also called, as I believe that all hon. Members want us to do, for the release of political prisoners and for the freedom of the media to be respected.
	We continue to support further sanctions against Iran—again, I was asked that question—if the regime does not comply with its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty.
	We should not lose sight of an historic opportunity in the coming weeks—the challenge for the international community at the Bali conference to begin the process of establishing a post-2012 international agreement, which could make the difference between our ability to tackle climate change internationally and a failure to do so. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will argue for common but differentiated responsibilities in which every country and every continent must play their part. Our success in advocating action on the international stage depends also on action at home, so we will be the first country to put legal limits on carbon emissions. We will ask the new independent committee on climate change to advise us whether the proposed 60 per cent. reduction by 2050, which is—

Gordon Brown: Ah! He has. I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman. Are the Conservatives for a referendum after ratification of the European treaty—yes or no? He said in the advert last week that the Conservatives are committed to a referendum. We know that 47 Tory MPs have demanded a post-ratification referendum, two shadow Ministers have called for one, and of course nine of his shadow Cabinet Ministers voted against a referendum when the question came before Parliament before. Where is he on Europe? Is he for a post-ratification referendum or not? Did he not say in a letter that has been sent out:
	"Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become Prime Minister, a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty—No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum"?
	Why does he not say that he is in favour of post-ratification referendum? Is the answer yes or no? I am happy to give way. [Hon. Members: "Come on!"] He cannot give an answer.
	On the energy Bill, where do the Conservatives stand on the big choices on nuclear? Are they for it or against it? They cannot tell us. Their policy is confused, contradictory and not thought through. What do they tell us on health? In their advert, they say that they would stop all closures, even medically agreed ones. But at the same time, they say they want no centrally imposed decisions. What sort of policy is that? It is confused, contradictory and not thought through. They have a housing spokesman who does not want to build houses. What sort of policy is that? They have an education spokesman who is not in favour of opportunity being extended to young people.  [ Interruption. ] Their education spokesman has not committed himself to the education leaving age being raised to 18. He has not said that he supports 50 per cent. of young people going to university, or that he supports the new diplomas in any positive way, even though business throughout the country is doing so.
	However, does the Conservatives' tax policy not show their real priority? The difference between their inheritance tax policy and ours— [ Interruption. ] They should listen to this. Under their policy, every single year— [ Interruption. ]

Gordon Brown: Is it not amazing that, when it comes to real policy and discussing the long-term future of this country, the right hon. Gentleman is not in a position even to join the debate?
	Think of it, Mr. Speaker: a modern miracle—the Conservatives' feeding of the 3,000 richest estates in the country £1 billion. Every week, we will ask them why they would spend £1 billion on the 3,000 richest estates in the country every year thus, if the policy went ahead, depriving the country of the chance to employ 25,000 teachers and nurses. What does that tell us about the Conservative party? It is more interested in tax cuts for a very few than in helping millions of people in this country. What does it tell us about the Conservative's economic competence that they are promising £6 billion in tax cuts with only £500 million of revenue to pay for it? Unaffordable tax cuts, spending promises that cannot be met, risks to stability—the same mistakes they made when they were in government.
	On every major issue—Europe, tax, spending, education for a few—the Leader of the Opposition has failed to face up to the big challenges ahead. He is not really for opportunity for all and he is failing to meet the stability test. The Conservatives' unaffordable tax cuts and their threat to stability are too big a risk to this country.
	The first law in the world to curb carbon emissions; the biggest educational reform for 60 years; the first universal right for adults to study free of charge; the first new towns for 40 years; building 3 million more homes by 2020; youth centres for every area of the country; progress on health, social care, transport and energy—this is a legislative programme that takes the next step forward for a stronger, fairer Britain, breaking down the barriers to opportunity, meeting the rising aspirations of the British people and ensuring security for all. I commend the Gracious Speech to the House.

Vincent Cable: We recognise that there is a constitutional anomaly, and that it must be dealt with properly and carefully, and in the context of finance. We are the only party, as far as I am aware, that wants to open up the issue of the Barnett formula and to reconsider whether resources can be better distributed on the basis of need.
	We note that the Government have flunked the issue of legislation on party funding. We believe, as do the public, that there must be limits on the amounts of money spent on party politics by political parties between and within election periods. There must be a cap on individual donations, whether from rich individuals or from trade unions, and that must be dealt with on an even-handed basis.
	There are other areas in which we have common ground with the Government. We welcome the principle behind the Climate Change Bill. We believe that it could be greatly strengthened by introducing annual targets, and the fact that the Government have recently been backsliding on targets for renewables reinforces the need for that policy to be firmly anchored in legislation.
	We are more concerned about the planning Bill, which has the potential to transfer a great deal of power from elected representatives to an unelected quango. Of course, the purpose behind it is to drive through new nuclear power and airport developments—very little to do with planning—and it threatens to undermine completely the checks and balances that have held the planning system together for many years.
	It is the same centralising instincts that seem to lie behind the new education Bill—this rather naive belief that we can fundamentally change the behaviour of grown people through compulsion. We are heading now for an absurd situation in which large numbers of adults are clamouring for more education and more retraining, but cannot get it because their local colleges are having their funding taken away, while at the same time the Government are trying to force young people into courses at local colleges that they do not want to attend and are completely unsuited to their circumstances.
	The Government's reputation—and particularly the Prime Minister's reputation—ultimately hinges on what happens to the economy. The Prime Minister is quite right that we have had a decade of stable growth. However, as I have warned over several years, that growth is seriously unbalanced by growing private debt linked to an inflated bubble in the housing market. Not just me, but many other people are starting to warn of the dangers. The International Monetary Fund is so warning, as is the chief economist of the Bank of England. Last week, we saw alarming evidence of the rapid rise of repossessions, which is what happens when we have a combination of excessive debt and a slowdown in the economy.
	The Government are providing new legislation on the specific issue of deposit protection—the aftermath of the Northern Rock affair. That is a reaction to what happened, but what we now need is some forward thinking about the new threats to the economy. When the Prime Minister first came in as Chancellor, he introduced some visionary legislation—the Bank of England Bill. It served this country very well; I gave my maiden speech in support of it. But the world is now a very different place and we need mechanisms to deal with inflation and deflation in the housing market and to deal with the looming problem of large numbers of people who cannot maintain their mortgages, facing the risk of losing their homes. We need mechanisms to ensure that the Chancellor's homilies about responsible and old-fashioned lending are translated into practice. We are not going to get this while the Government simply hang on, waiting for good news. We need vision, new ideas and fresh thinking, which are totally absent from this Queen's Speech. That is why we shall oppose it.

Andrew MacKinlay: I want to make a few comments about the Gracious Speech. I note the Government's intention to increase the availability of affordable housing, which is one of their priorities. I want to express encouragement in that laudable objective, but also some concern. As MP for Thurrock, I was persuaded that the Government were charged and seized with the idea of building up the Thames gateway, regenerating brown, fallow and derelict land in that area and producing new affordable homes to rent and to buy, which they saw as a great prize. The emphasis was on planned growth of essential public services commensurate with the increase in housing units.
	At the last general election, I was prepared for and, indeed, enthusiastic about the ideas behind the Thames Gateway regeneration and I was proud that the Government had created a Thurrock urban development corporation. However, after some years, I have to tell the Government that there is very little to show for the legislation and policy that they put forward. I am justifiably very irritated. I am irritated because a plethora of Ministers have had some responsibility for this. We have seen numerous quangos with "Thames Gateway" or similar terms in their title. Every week I am invited to what I can refer to only as "junkets"—though they are also called receptions and dinners—by people who claim to be involved in part of the regeneration. I spurn them—there are far too many junkets and receptions in this place anyway—but I am also concerned that such people seem to see receptions, dinners, exhibitions and conferences as a substitute for bricks and mortar. It is not good enough.
	The Minister in charge is now on test. The Thames Gateway needs housing units, and it also needs appropriate demonstrable growth in essential public services to meet the increase in housing units. There has been no indication of that happening. If we look at the age profile of my general practitioners, we see that many are old and in single practices. A lot of people were put on quangos—some of whom I did not commend to the Government, but my advice was ignored—who have not been able to produce much. I am getting frustrated, and I will not put up with it.
	The Government need to show some dispatch. Ministers have all these buzz words—gateways, stepping-stones, blue-skies policies and so on—and one of them is joined-up government. Their performance in this area is the opposite of joined-up government. The Department has within it—I forget what it is called now—what I used to call the ministry of housing and local government; I am a bit conservative about such things. Whatever the Department is called now—communities or whatever—part of it wants to build up the Thames Gateway with regeneration and so on, while a junior Minister in another part of it is holding things up. Apparently, he or she is in charge of approving something called the spatial strategy, the approval of which keeps being pushed back.
	I have never coveted being at the Dispatch Box, but I have to say that I could do a better job than some of those who have been doing it for some time. It is now time for a bit of candid speaking. I have never asked to see a Prime Minister before, but I shall ask to see the new Prime Minister if there is not appreciable movement, a reduction in junkets, receptions and dinners and, instead, a manifest regeneration in the Thames Gateway. I have now got that off my chest.

Andrew MacKinlay: I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Speaker. I know that you know where Thurrock and Tilbury are, because you have been kind enough to visit my constituency a number of times.
	I could get the Whips in here pretty quickly if I mentioned West Lothian, but I shall hold that in my strategic armoury—my box of weapons—for another time. I want to develop my point about the border police force. What we have not been told is how it will be funded. At present, the principal airports run by BAA are called designated airports, and the chief constables or police authorities where they are situated determine the level of policing and the bill that is presented to BAA. The position is perverse, in that the good council tax payers of Bedfordshire—whom I do not represent—must meet the full bill for the policing of Luton airport. Moreover, I believe that there is a disparity between the cost of police services for Cardiff and one or two other not insignificant airports, and the cost of such services for BAA airports.
	Clearly some people have noticed that, and I think we need early disclosure of what will be the role and responsibility of the border police, not just in the seaports—which is extremely important to me—but in the airports. What will be their interface with the airports? Will they be in addition to or instead of the territorial police forces, and what will be the funding arrangements? There should be parity of police funding throughout the airports and a comparable tariff in the seaports, paid by the port authority or, perhaps, based on the number of container units going through each seaport. In any event, the funding regime needs to be discussed and disclosed at an early stage. BAA has shown that there is a disparity.
	It comes back to the use of this place. Lord Stevens, for whom I have the highest regard, is a former commissioner of the Metropolitan police and a distinguished member of the other place. He is chairing the taskforce on the border police, but an invitation to a reception this week that I and other hon. Members received says that he is also now on the board of BAA. I think that there is a potential conflict of interest, and people do not see that. BAA is meeting an enormous policing bill at present and one of its directors is chairing the taskforce.
	I remember when my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) was the Home Secretary, some Home Secretaries ago, that I went on to him about the question of border police. He arranged for me to meet the Home Office police adviser, a delightful man, but a man who was an ex-policeman—he was not from the British Transport police or the Ministry of Defence police; he was from one of the territorial constabularies. Of course, their whole culture is one of opposing specialised police forces. Therefore, we have this bias built into the Home Office in terms of its police advisers, and Lord Stevens, a former commissioner of the Metropolitan police, is a director of BAA and advising the Home Secretary.
	I think that there should be greater consultation with Members of Parliament, including those who represent seaports and airports, at an earlier stage. During the summer, I wrote to the Government asking whether I could have access to the people who were drawing up the Bill and I have not had a reply, which I think is damn discourteous, but it is not unusual.
	Then there is the whole business of the European treaty. Those hon. Members who have a copy of the Gracious Speech before them may have noticed that the Queen said:
	"Legislation will be brought forward to enable Parliament to approve the European Union Reform Treaty."
	Words are important and I think that this will be the first occasion, if the Government really meant that when they were briefing the Queen on what to say this morning, that there will be a Bill that says that this House approves a treaty. All the other legislation hitherto, including the long and tortuous Maastricht legislation, was legislation not to approve a treaty but to give effect in English law to the consequences of a treaty that had already been ratified, which was done under royal prerogative. I wonder whether Her Majesty has got it wrong. I hope that it is not breaking any traditions to say that, but she did say—as we were told, Mr. Speaker got a copy to double check—that there will be legislation to enable Parliament to approve the European reform treaty. I hope that she and the Government are held to that commitment because it will be a parliamentary innovation. In any event, we have been told by the Prime Minister that we will have that, because he wants to strengthen the relationship between the Government, Parliament and people.

Andrew MacKinlay: I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman. I say that as someone who is unashamedly not just pro-European, but an enthusiast for the European Union, which I believe has been and is a force for good in terms of commerce, politics, the economy and conflict resolution and minimisation. But I also believe that we have to take Parliament and people together. There has been a singular failure by successive Governments to do that in relation to the EU and its development from the Community and the common market.
	There is a case for a referendum on the reaffirmation of our membership of the EU. In my view, the time and the vehicle for that is not now and in respect of the treaty—an amending treaty, as were the others—but between now and say 2012. I am sure that my advice will not be taken unless the arithmetic of this place makes it inevitable. It would focus the minds of men and women, rather like a hanging. It would be make your mind up time. I say this not in a facetious, spiteful or taunting way, but the leader of the Conservative party in particular, as well as his Foreign Affairs spokesman, would then have to say that they supported the UK's membership of the EU for the reasons that I have given: that it is, overall, a net force for good in the world and our membership is in the UK's best interests.

Andrew MacKinlay: The hon. Member for Thurrock did not say that. I remember a Liberal Democrat Supply day when the Conservatives were in office and Paddy Ashdown was the leader. The issue discussed was so important to the House that the place was like the Marie Celeste: nobody was around. The Liberal Democrat motion was that there should be a referendum confirming our membership of the European Union. Like a stick of rock, if you cut me in half, I have "Labour" going right through me, but I sometimes recognise that other parties have a legitimate point of view. I can disclose to the House that there was a one-line Whip. Hardly any Conservative or Labour Members were about and the Liberals were here because they were promoting the debate. I was here as well.
	The then Labour Chief Whip, Derek Foster, heard that I was going to support the motion. I told him that I was, as it was a good idea that would get us over a problem. He looked me in the eye and said "Mackinlay, there will be no promotion for you." I said "Come off it, I never supposed that there would be. But if that is the price, so be it." For me, that was a seminal moment in my time in the House.

Paul Keetch: Will the hon. Gentleman also please acknowledge, which I do not think has been done of the Floor of the House, that there is another distinction between members of the Irish Republic? Like Commonwealth members, they are entitled to serve in Her Majesty's armed forces. Regrettably, in current operations, an Irish Republic citizen was killed on operations, fighting for the British Army, and we saw the spectacle of a full British military funeral in Dublin. Although the loss of any member of the armed forces is regrettable, it was nevertheless noticeable that the Irish Government and the Irish people turned out in considerable numbers to respect the death of that very brave young man in his service for this country.

Andrew MacKinlay: There is no difficulty; I do not want to be misunderstood on that point. However, I invite people to consider the fact that there are not many other countries in the world in which a high proportion of people on the electoral roll are not, strictly speaking, citizens. There is nothing wrong with that, but if people pause and think about it, it probably is a good idea to change the situation. In any event, the Government could not tell me how many people on the electoral roll were in that category.
	For clarity's sake, and to ensure that there is no misunderstanding, let me say that I am not in any way suggesting that people who currently vote should be precluded from doing so. I am not suggesting that anyone should lose citizenship of a Commonwealth country of which they are justifiably proud. I am just saying that as we are to have a citizenship review, there is a powerful case for saying that such people should be given British citizenship within a certain period. Thereafter, that would be part of the package that we work with—part of the citizenship package for Commonwealth citizens who come here. There is a degree of logic to that, and I invite the House to reflect on that point. I emphasise the fact that I do not want to take away any existing rights or citizenships; those should endure. I am just conscious of the fact that a review is under way, although the Queen's Speech was regrettably rather barren on detail.
	I now come to my final point. The Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has embarked, to some extent at my prompting, on a review of our overseas territories. I think that the House has abdicated its responsibilities to the few thousand people peppered around the globe in the very small, residual, United Kingdom territories. People say, "Well, they have their own legislative councils." Indeed they do, but their Parliament is this Parliament. If our country goes to war, the people of Bermuda, Gibraltar, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Falkland Islands do not sit it out; they are committed by the actions taken by our Government and Parliament.
	There is great disparity in the wealth of our overseas territories. Some are demonstrably wealthy and self-sufficient, although the distribution of that wealth leaves an awful lot to be desired in some places; there are great disparities within those territories. Other territories are dependent on funding from London, and their people are in what you and I would consider to be poverty, Madam Deputy Speaker. They are out of sight and out of mind. The House should put aside some time for the subject, and there should probably be an institutional committee with ongoing oversight of the conduct, stewardship and governance of our overseas territories. At present we are singularly failing. That is in contrast to other countries: the United States, France, Spain and the Netherlands have the equivalent of overseas territories, but they give them some limited representation in their national legislatures. We are not fulfilling our moral obligations to people in our overseas territories, and it is time that the House did so.

John Redwood: It is sad for parliamentary democracy, because one would hope that by and large Government Members support the speech and do so sufficiently to want to speak in favour of it. If the House returned to the notion that the Queen's Speech should remain confidential until the Queen delivered it, that would be a courtesy to Her Majesty, and it might encourage more right hon. and hon. Members to take the debate seriously

Stephen Pound: I am reluctant to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman's mellifluous flow, but may I assure him that what we said in our election statements in 2005 was not that there would be a referendum if there was "something like" a constitution but if there was a constitutional treaty? What we face is a reform treaty—it is not a new constitution. I rest my case.

John Redwood: I have already set out my case. I have always been a Unionist—I still think that the Union has a lot to offer the peoples of the United Kingdom—but I am warning the Government that they are losing control of the debate because they have set up a lopsided system of devolution which does not suit the people of England. As an English MP, I will have to give voice to the very reasonable concerns of my constituents. I can still do so within the framework of a rebalanced Union, but if the Government ignore all those pleas, that will get more difficult. If they go in exactly the wrong direction and try to force bogus European regions on England, they will accelerate the process of splitting up the Union and make the problem that much worse. I hope that they are listening and understand the force of the argument. After all, they have some English MPs themselves. They do not get quite as many English votes as the Conservative party does, but they get quite a lot, and they will need a lot if they are to have any chance of staying as a large party in the House of Commons. I therefore trust that they will consider it very carefully.
	The Government have tried to use this Queen's Speech in the usual crude way that we have come to expect of this new Administration—not so new when one looks at their members, but perhaps new in style. They see their list of proposed legislative measures as a cross between a press release whereby they legislate merely to get an effect or create a story—which means that sometimes they do not bother to put all the legislation through or repeal it before it has even come into effect—and a means of trying to expose differences between themselves and the Opposition which they think will place them in a favourable light. I have a piece of advice for the Prime Minister. He has spent all his life trying to get this job, and I would quite like him to do it well, because it is my country too, and he is my Prime Minister as well as the Labour party's Prime Minister. However, a good Prime Minister does not spend all their time in office thinking about how they can trip up or expose their opponents—they should spend most of it thinking about how they can solve the nation's problems, identifying them correctly and taking the action that only they and their Government colleagues can take. Obviously, Opposition Members can speak but cannot act; we share the frustrations that Labour Members will remember from their time in opposition. We can have good ideas, but unless the Government adopt them, they do not happen.
	Of course, the Government live in a political world, and from time to time they have to give the Opposition a kicking, or try to—that is part of the life of this place, and I am not saying that we should be immune from criticism. However, they would be a better Government, and thought to be so, if they spent a bit more of their time worrying about the problems of the country and how their policies might work in effect and rather less time worrying about what the Opposition's position is on things. The Prime Minister spent quite a lot of his speech trying to find out what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition thought or said about a number of interesting issues instead of spending time developing the detail behind the Queen's Speech, which he and his colleagues had written, in order to satisfy the House that it would be different from the 10 Queen's Speeches written by his predecessor and would really make a difference to the problems of the country.
	Let us look at some of those problems. The Prime Minister says that affordable housing is a very big problem. It is obviously true that a lot of people would like to buy a property but are fairly young or do not have the incomes or savings that enable them to do so as easily as they would like. We notice that under this Government more and more young people live with their parents for rather longer. While I am sure that family life is a wonderful thing, I suspect that it is mainly because of economics—they cannot afford to get a property of their own at the stage in life when their parents or grandparents took it for granted that they would leave the family home and find their own property.
	The Government refuse to answer one very simple question. They say that they want more affordable housing, but when I ask Ministers by how much they want house prices to fall for them to then regard housing as being affordable, they will not answer, because they realise that telling all the existing home owners that they are trying to engineer a house price fall would not be very popular. However, if they are not trying to engineer a house price fall, it is difficult to see what they mean when they say that they want housing to be more affordable. It just does not make any sense. We know that there are lots of properties for sale, and it is possible to buy a property if, of course, one has the money.
	The difficulty is that the Government's analysis is economically illiterate. They believe that the determinant of house prices is how many new houses are built. Unlike the market for most goods and services, the housing market is mainly driven by second-hand homes. Most of the homes that are bought and sold each year are houses that were built quite a long time ago, and only a marginal amount is made up of new homes that are constructed. It has been a very marginal amount under this Government because not that many homes have been constructed. The Government say that if only they could make a quantum increase in the number of new homes built, they could create a hugely disproportionate effect on the market, leading house prices to fall enough to be affordable. I just do not think they have done the maths. They do not understand the balance between second-hand homes and new ones.
	More important, the Government clearly have not understood the first fundamental of how a housing market works in a free enterprise society with a big banking sector, such as the United Kingdom. Thanks to the work of the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor, we have lived through a credit boom and bust. We had several years of massive boom because interest rates were kept extremely low, inviting banks to lend huge sums of money against property, bidding the prices up. In the last three months, we have had a credit bust, which was very visible with a run on a leading mortgage bank, and people now have great difficulty in getting access to the mortgages they might need.
	If the Government are serious about wanting people to be able to buy homes, they must first of all look at their lurch from boom to bust in the credit market, and they have to get the credit and mortgage markets going again. Through the Chancellor, they need to have conversations with the Bank of England about why there was such a catastrophe in Britain—worse than anywhere else in the world—over the summer, and about how they can secure sufficient liquidity for the banking system again, with an interest rate structure that makes sense.
	During that period, the famous, so-called independent Bank of England has turned out not to be independent at all, as some of us always suspected. It turns out to be part of a tripartite arrangement with the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority. We now know that most of the crucial decisions taken during the summer were either actively taken by the Chancellor and the Treasury, or were heavily influenced or cleared through the Chancellor and the Treasury, illustrating that the Bank was not truly independent.
	What do the Government need to do from here? There should be a Bill in the Queen's Speech to introduce proper independence for the Bank of England so that we can pursue a more sensible monetary policy. I am not sure that the Chancellor's interventions during the past few weeks have been at all helpful. It would be good if the Bank of England were to re-establish control over interest rates in the money markets.
	All the attention is focused on the monthly deliberations of the Monetary Policy Committee. During the past couple of months, its deliberations have been academic seminars. It has fixed a rate, but it is not the rate at which transactions are taking place. The rate at which transactions are taking place has shot up considerably above the rate recommended by the committee because the Bank has not been doing the other part of its job. It has not been using open market operations, supplying liquidity or getting the banknote issue and the supply and trading of bills right in order to ensure that market rates are in line with Monetary Policy Committee rates. If the Government want to continue to believe in the Monetary Policy Committee, they must learn how monetary policy works so that the committee can once again be the main driving force for interest rates in the economy, not an academic spectator making interesting observations about it.
	The Government have to learn that if they want to price people back into the property market, they have to do something about money supply, credit and their mismanagement of the banking system. Promising, or threatening, some increase in the rate of new house building in 2, 3, 5 or 10 years' time will not have an impact on the current situation. The numbers are too small in relation to the total number of homes in the economy, and the delay will be such that it will have no immediate impact on the state of the property market today.
	I welcome the Government's belief in aspiration. I have always believed that home ownership is the best form of tenure. It is the preferred form—around half the people who do not own their home would like to do so. It is not the other way round: half the people who own their home would not rather rent. People who were in that position could, of course, easily sell their home and rent instead; that would not be a difficulty. I wish the Government well, but I hope they will study carefully what I and others are saying because they are not embarking on a policy in the Queen's Speech that will remedy the lack of affordable housing and the current crisis in the mortgage and housing market.

David Wright: I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman. I think it important, when we do agree, for us to agree across the Chamber. I agree that the 14-to-16 curriculum is a particularly important issue for young boys, and that there is a "switch-off" in that boys tend to achieve more at a later point in their education than girls do. That should be accepted in the system. I am not suggesting that we should write off academic achievement for boys aged between 14 and 16, and I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that either, but we need a mixed curriculum and a range of opportunities.

David Wright: I have met the principal of my local college, who is keen to engage with the Government over the next few months in determining our overall further education strategy.
	We should pay tribute to those who work in the sector, and who see further education as an area of growth. Millions of pounds have been invested in the college, which is in the constituency of The Wrekin. We have a sports dome there, and a partnership with the local football club brings young people in and ensures maximum use of education facilities. The football club has a learning centre alongside the pitch, which is run in partnership with the college and with schools. It takes kids out of the school environment when they are aged between 14 and 16 and younger, and inspires them by placing them in a different setting and showing them the opportunities that they can take.
	That ties in with the agenda for providing more activity for young people before and after school. Telford has a £200 million Building Schools for the Future programme, which will completely change school premises stock throughout the town. We will have new schools across the secondary sector, many new schools in the primary sector, and some refurbishments of primary and secondary schools. That is particularly important, because it offers us an opportunity to extend school hours beyond 4 or 4.30 pm. When young people feel switched off from activity in their communities, we can use those schools as a resource that we have not had in the past.
	We have often said that people should visit youth clubs or community centres in the evenings, and I have always thought it a waste for high-quality school buildings featuring gymnasiums and classroom facilities to be locked up at 4 or 5 pm. We should use those facilities, and the extended school hours, to engage with young people in communities. I hope that one important result of Building Schools for the Future will be schools opening their doors out of hours so that young people have access to learning, leisure and entertainment in a school setting after 4 or 5 pm.
	I want to say a little about the climate change legislation. On Friday night I was at an extremely well-attended meeting of Friends of the Earth, along with 30-odd other people. There was real consensus among the people who were present that the Government are taking significant action in relation to climate change. There was recognition that they are the first Government to attempt to put such legislation on the statute book. Clearly, Friends of the Earth has concerns about how we produce targets. I suggest that, as a minimum, the Executive should report to the House each year on their progress in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but there are some challenges here for the Conservative party. What is its view generally in relation to nuclear power? Is it going to support the extension of the nuclear power programme? I generally do support an increase in nuclear power and the building of a new phase of nuclear power stations as a mechanism to reduce carbon emissions. What is the position of the Conservative party? I think that we need a mix of energy supply—a mix of renewables and nuclear power. I think that we can and should achieve that as a nation.
	I notice that within the Gracious Speech there is a proposal to look again at the regulation of bus services. That is a Bill that people will be particularly keen to examine. I attended a meeting with the pensioners forum in Telford last week. Those pensioners were particularly keen for us to regulate the bus service sector better. They were pleased, of course, that they are going to get free off-peak nationwide bus travel. We are proud of that.  [Interruption.]

Charles Kennedy: Coming in the wake of the rather fanciful circumstances that led to the general election that never was, this is without doubt the Queen's Speech of a rather chastened Prime Minister, and deservedly so. For those of us who have participated in these debates over the years and indeed over the decades, the lack of a sense of occasion is in part a reflection of that fact.
	There is no doubt that this is a rather curious Queen's Speech. It is curious for the governing party because it might well have been the Queen's Speech that was never delivered. One can only speculate. The general election could have been held last week. Let us suppose that the governing party were returned, with a smaller, an equivalent or, who knows, even a larger majority. What kind of Queen's Speech might we have been looking at today, or whenever it would have been delivered? There is that slight sense of unreality about the Executive at the moment, given recent events. That permeates rather a lot of the measures that appear—and in certain circumstances, do not appear—in the Queen's Speech today.
	I want to refer to two broad points and then make a couple of quick constituency points. First, although one subject has not been greatly discussed today, it continues to cast its shadow across our society and the international stage. Let us look at the context and the wording of the Queen's Speech. Now, thankfully—it is a cause for celebration—Northern Ireland no longer appears in a specific category of its own towards the end. It is now grouped with the Parliaments and Assemblies within the UK. In a sense, it is normal politics at last, thank goodness. However, for Northern Ireland, now read Iraq. I wonder how many more Queen's Speeches will feature the word "Iraq" in the way that this one does.
	This week, many of us from all parties will be in our areas with our communities at Remembrance day events, paying tribute to those who have made that ultimate sacrifice. I wonder how many more will lose their lives as the dreadful state of affairs that we have got ourselves into in Iraq persists. Of course, it continues to feed so much of the legislative programme of this Government. Today is not the occasion to get yet again into an argument about the extent to which this country is more at risk from, or is experiencing directly to a greater extent than might otherwise have been the case, international or domestically grown terrorism following our actions on the international stage, but, whether there is a direct causal link between the one and the other, it cannot be denied, as Select Committees and the Joint Intelligence Committee themselves have observed, that the way in which we chose to act with the United States Government, without the backing of the United Nations, was bound to hasten the degree of danger for this country. Now terrorism legislation is back before us. The 28 days issue will be back before the House again.
	I was much involved, as leader of my party at the time, when the Government first tried to make progress on that matter. As we all recall, it became a cause célèbre. There was talk of the House of Lords having to sit all weekend to try to get some agreement. In his usual rather Houdini-like fashion, the then Prime Minister, at the 59th minute of the 11th hour, was able to cobble together a degree of compromise with the then leader of the Conservative party and the issue was put off for another day.
	Many of us involved in those discussions, from prime ministerial level downwards, in all parties, felt that that there was an awful lot of party political posturing on the issue at that point. The Government are now bringing the matter back and they are saying this time that, although they have indicated an intention and a preference to extend the period of detention without charge, they genuinely want all-party discussions. It cuts both ways. If the Government are genuine about that, equally, Opposition parties that have been critical, our own included, have to say that, if the facts change, they are prepared to change their minds. However, it has to be said—both Liberal Democrats and Conservatives alike are saying this with one voice at the moment—that we have yet to be presented with persuasive facts that would lead either party to change its mind. I hope therefore that, if the Government do feel that they are in possession of those facts, they will go about it on a much more constructive basis and take a more rational approach than they did a year or two ago.
	Secondly, I should like to pick up on some of the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood). We will have lots of opportunity during this Parliament—as every week goes by, it looks as if it will be a longer, rather than a shorter, Parliament—to debate Europe and more domestic UK concerns, not least the position and role of Scottish Members within the UK Parliament post-devolution.
	I was my party's spokesman on Europe at the time of Maastricht, when almost a year of my life—a night without end—was spent in this place. I recall the Conservative night-watchmen of the period: Jonathan Aitken, Teddy Taylor, the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith). The roll of honour goes on and on, as did the nights without end. I always compare it to the passage of the seasons. We began in mid-winter and there was brilliant summer sunshine when the then Prime Minister imposed the three-line Whip to get the legislation through.
	I argued at that point for a referendum on Maastricht. Leaving aside the other details, I, as a pro-European, thought that if we were changing the status of Her Majesty the Queen from the sovereign and monarch to a citizen of the European Union, it must have constitutional implications for the country. That should have been put to the vote. Of course it was not.
	I have never seen the present constitutional or amending treaty as commanding that kind of necessity. I am critical of the Government for missing the opportunity, under a previous leadership, when they had the ball at their feet; it remains to be seen what the present leadership will do. But they have not gone out and made the case convincingly and persuasively for Europe. Too much of the sceptical, negative case has been allowed to predominate. That is a criticism of those of us on the pro-European side. I am not critical of those who are willing to engage and argue until the cows come home as to their opposition, scepticism and criticism of all things European; that is what democracy is all about. But there has not been a proper counterbalancing argument.
	The issue is not really this constitutional treaty any more than it was the Nice treaty or Maastricht. The Government of the country can never satisfy Euro-sceptical ambitions and paranoia; that is what John Major found out, to his immense cost. He fed the monster and the monster kept coming back and eventually devoured him. We are arguing for a root and branch referendum campaign to settle, for another political generation, our relations and involvement with Europe. That is long overdue and this Queen's Speech and amendments that Liberal Democrats will table to it gives us that opportunity.

Michael Fallon: The hon. Gentleman must be right: there has been lose lending and lose borrowing by the banks in the wholesale markets. Of course, the directors of those banks—Northern Rock, in particular—cannot escape their own responsibility for ensuring that their banks were liquid as well as solvent. Equally, there is a supervisory system, which the Labour Government put in place in 1997, and it has clearly failed. There was confusion. When I asked the Governor during a sitting of the Treasury Committee who was in charge of the tripartite system, he famously replied, "Define what you mean by in charge." That tells us all that we need to know about why people were queuing around the block to take out their money.
	I want to turn finally to the national health service. If there is a single document that sums up the Blair-Brown years, it is the Healthcare Commission report on the tragedy that affected the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in my constituency. The report should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the destructive tension in place between clinicians and managers, between senior managers and the board and between the trust and Ministers in Whitehall.
	The Healthcare Commission, of course, identified the gaps in cleanliness, nursing and so on, but it also identified the culture of targets—not simply clinical targets, but financial targets—that the trust was fixated on having to meet. Of course, it is true that the trust was poorly led. It was incompetently managed. It did not have the calibre of senior management to cope. But it is also true that that trust was under enormous pressure from Whitehall to clear a huge deficit, year after year.
	If hon. Members read the report, they will see that the reluctance to employ extra staff, to change the various practices and to tackle some of the deep-seated problems at the three hospitals the trust is in charge of sprang very largely from the financial constraints imposed on the trust by Ministers in Whitehall. As a result, 90 people in west Kent sadly lost their lives, with C. difficile at least a contributory factor. That was not a private company. Those were not contractors. It was an acute NHS trust in the front line of patient care, running three hospitals. The answer that the Prime Minister gave was to set up yet another regulatory body. That will not deal with the problem; we need a better run, more accountable national health service in which local communities can have real confidence.
	The Government have had 10 years to start to tackle those problems and get these things right. The reform that has been endlessly paraded in front of us has not been real reform. Billions of pounds have been wasted. We end up, 10 years later, with an education system that fails half of our children, with a criminal justice system where criminals cannot be sent to jail because the Government have failed to build enough prison places, with a Government who have not a clue how many immigrants are here, whether or not they are taking British jobs, and with a national health service that is killing the very patients for whom it is supposed to care. There has to be a better way.

David Maclean: I wish to begin my remarks tonight by paying tribute to the four firemen who tragically lost their lives a few days ago. I commend the valued efforts of their colleagues and others in searching for the bodies, so that their loved ones may at last have closure. I pay tribute to them—I hope that the House will not misunderstand my remarks—because I wish to draw attention to their exemplary courage, which seems to have gone against the grain of other examples that we have seen in the past few years or months, when other public servants have not acted with sheer indifference to risk and their own lives.
	I am thinking of the police community support officers who, apparently, would not go into a pond to save a drowning boy because they had not been trained in the correct way to do so, or because of our health and safety culture. I am thinking of the ambulance men I read about at the weekend who would not run along a sandy beach in case they tripped—again, because it might have been against their own health and safety rules. I am thinking of many other examples over the past few years of local councils imposing arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions on people's fun, whether on bonfire night, at conker matches or at street parties. There have been restrictions on other activities, too, including on the Royal British Legion being able to collect in its normal way. Too many such incidents have happened, and in many ways that has curtailed people's ability to take risks and do things.
	The firemen were unique—well, no, they were not unique because others have taken risks of that sort, but they are unique in my mind because they stand out as having gone against the grain in the past few months. I hope that they will be remembered for many years. Their families should bear in mind the fact that they did not die in vain; apparently they arrived at the scene and charged in, thinking that there might be people in the building who could be saved. No doubt there will be an investigation and no doubt we will all say that it must not happen again, but in some ways—I hope that the House will not misunderstand this either—I hope that it does happen again; I hope that some time in the future, human beings, wishing to save the lives of other human beings, take risks that are against the rules and against our health and safety culture. In so doing, I hope that they live, but if they do die trying to save the lives of others, they will not die in vain.
	I am disappointed that there is nothing in the Queen's Speech to curtail the excesses of the Health and Safety Executive and to reduce the litigiousness of our society. I have my criticisms of Sir Ian Blair—I think it is time that he stepped down for the mistakes that the Met made—but it is an absolute farce that the Metropolitan police were tried for the de Menezes shooting by the Health and Safety Executive in a health and safety trial. If the Met had to answer questions on the matter—and there were very serious questions to answer—that should have taken place under the auspices of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It is the proper body to operate police complaints procedures and to make judgments on the suitability of the commissioner, or the culpability of any other officers concerned.
	Until this country does something about the constant litigation that prevents schoolteachers from taking children on proper trips, and until the Government bring forward legislation that enables us once again to become a risk-taking society—within sensible limits—rather than a risk-averse society, we will not be the economically successful nation that we aspire to be. We heard wonderful speeches today on why children are not performing well at school, or want to leave school, or are fed up with school. In schools, we see part of that pervasive culture: we avoid children's taking risks, we avoid judging them, and we do not challenge them too hard. We have to get back to being a risk-taking society.
	I am disappointed that there is no Bill to give teeth to the Competition Commission or the Office of Fair Trading. After 18 months of intense investigation, the OFT came to the conclusion that when it came to milk, our supermarkets were screwing farmers ruthlessly: the supermarkets give farmers about 18p a litre for milk and sell it for 54p, and 18p in the middle disappears somewhere. The Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs discovered that two or three years ago, after a few months' investigation. Now that we discover, through the OFT's big inquiry, that supermarkets are doing what we have known about for some time, what is to happen next? Of course farmers have had a few pence more per litre in the past few months, but that is not because the supermarkets have suddenly developed a guilty conscience. It is not because they have decided that they must pay the primary producer more. It is thanks to India and China buying up vast supplies of dry powder and milk on the world market. If farmers in our country are one day to receive a proper, decent price for milk, it will not be because of any action taken by the Competition Commission or the OFT; it will be because of China and India and their insatiable demand for dairy products.
	Nothing in the Queen's Speech gives the OFT power to take action when it finds problems. There is nothing to deal with the outrageous, unfair banking practices that our consumers are faced with. There may have been some unwise lending by the banks, but we know how they will claw back some of the money: through unfair bank charges, unfair credit card charges and unfair payment protection insurance. Recently a constituent recommended a wonderful website to me called moneysavingexpert.com. I must practise what it preaches more often. All parties in the House are concerned about the massive amount of private debt. That excellent website is geared towards consumers. It tells them how they can save money and deal with some of the malpractices of the banks.
	We can appreciate the size of the debt problem if we consider the fact that the website has had 4.3 million downloads by consumers of a document on how to reclaim unfair bank charges. There is a template letter written by the excellent Martin Lewis, who runs the website. There have been 107,000 downloads of information on the payment protection insurance scam operated by banks, and 35,000 downloads of the template on how to reclaim unfair credit card charges. There is a huge problem out there, and I see nothing in the Queen's Speech to deal with the aspects of it that I have mentioned.
	I urge the Government, through the Lord Chancellor, to remind judges not to close down current legal cases against banks in which customers are reclaiming unfair credit card charges. On 27 July, the OFT agreed a test case on bank charge reclaiming, and that has put a halt to all other cases in which unfair bank charges are being reclaimed. That halt does not apply to unfair credit card charges and payment protection insurance, which in millions of cases was probably unsold; but apparently many judges are saying, "No, you can't go ahead with that claim because the OFT has a test case, and it is all closed down." That halt relates only to bank charges, and I hope that the Government, through the Lord Chancellor, will urge judges to let the cases go ahead. I come back to my earlier point: let us have legislation that will give the OFT and the Competition Commission the teeth that equivalent bodies in America have.
	My final point on banking is that at least the chief executive of Citibank had the decency to resign when the problem hit the fan. There were no such resignations from chief executives in Northern Rock; they were no doubt sustained by their friends on the Government Benches.
	I regret that there was no Bill to simplify recycling in the Queen's Speech. I am passionate about doing my recycling. I find it more difficult, with dodgy legs, to carry all my different boxes, bottles, glass and papers to the recycling heaps in Eden or Carlisle in my constituency. In the Westminster area, we are blessed with multi-recycling: one bin takes all, apart from polystyrene and garbage. I encourage other councils to do likewise. It makes it simple. Westminster boasts that it has an 80 per cent. recycling rate. Admittedly, a large part of what is collected is burned for fuel and power in electricity stations, but I might take into account the extra hot water and Fairy liquid that I use when washing all my little bottles and plastic jars to make sure that I have practically sterilised my rubbish that is going into the recycling tips. As for other people doing the same, when I see the Liberals driving to the recycling bins in their Volvos, I wonder whether we have got the economics of the matter right. However, I believe in recycling. I also believe in cutting waste and in ensuring much more home insulation. We must do all of those things, as well as recycling.
	It is grossly unfair of councils to impose charges on people for not putting out the correct bins on the correct day with the correct boxes and bags, and to refuse to take some of the things that we are given, such as Tetra Paks. If they will not recycle Tetra Paks, what are we supposed to do with them? What am I supposed to do with the polystyrene that was wrapped around my last computer monitor, if the councils refuse to take it? Rather than the Government encouraging councils to impose penalty charges on people who put a chip wrapper in the wrong box, they should say to councils, "You have a three-year deadline in which to allow the public to put all recyclable material into multi-purpose bins." Perhaps they should say to supermarkets and goods suppliers, "You also have three years to make your packaging materials easily recyclable." That would mean no composites—no more Tetra Paks of cardboard, plastic and foil stuck together, which cannot be recycled. Suppliers should not sell products in polystyrene if no one will recycle it.
	The burden has been passed on to the innocent. I started off as a highly ignorant consumer; I thought that all plastic was plastic was plastic, but now I discover that in the areas covered by my local councils there are about 20 different kinds of plastic. I have to run around popping it in different holes in different bins on different days of the week.

David Maclean: The hon. Gentleman does a great disservice to hairdressers. The country depends on thousands of good hairdressers, and on others whom the training and enterprise councils turned out. The apprenticeship system had to be reformed—the hon. Gentleman knows that—and it was in decline before we looked at it. Apprenticeships were too long. People did not stick with them, and employers would not take on youngsters at the wages demanded for a five-year period, so the system had to be changed. Now, however, we have nothing. Doing away with the levy was not the problem, as it was sensible to do so. Companies became involved in the training of young people— [ Interruption. ] Let us wait and see what the Government introduce. I repeat my claim that if it is a system to keep kids in school four days a week until they are 18, with only one day on release for an apprenticeship, it is a waste of time. It is worthless, and the children will not do it.
	I am disappointed—this has been commented on already, but it is my turn to say so, too—that there is nothing in the Queen's Speech to deal with the constitutional outrage we face in the House whereby there are two classes of MP. It is not good enough for some Government Members to say that if Tory policies were enacted, there would be a second class of MP—we have that already, and it is called the Members who sit for England, whether they are Tory, Labour or Liberal. We are second-class citizens in this House. We have no say on Scottish matters—maybe we do not want to have a say on Scottish matters—yet Members from Scotland can participate in today's debate and vote through measures that affect my constituents in England but do not affect their constituents in Scotland. This Parliament is unbalanced, because all of us in this Chamber should work under the principle of equal pain. If I vote through higher taxes, I should face my constituents, who can complain about it. If Members from Scotland vote through higher taxes in England, however, they do not have to face their constituents in Scotland.

Tony Baldry: I shall gladly give way to the hon. Gentleman, whose attendance is usually assiduous. However, he is about the only Labour Back Bencher present, and he drifted in about 10 minutes ago in a slightly dilettante way. It is sad that there are more Ministers on the Treasury Bench than Back-Bench Labour MPs who have bothered to turn up for the whole of this opening day of the Queen's Speech debate. It is pretty pathetic that the Treasury Benches cannot succeed in getting more Labour Members of Parliament to take part in the first day of debate on the Gracious Speech; apart from anything else, it is rather insulting to Her Majesty.

David Taylor: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's courtesy and compliments.
	Why did the hon. Gentleman omit from his litany two crucial economic statistics that are perhaps more important than those that he cited? First, there is the proportion of aggregate debt relative to GDP in 1997 and 2007. Secondly, why did the hon. Gentleman not say that during the 11 and a half years of Mrs. Thatcher's Governments, the average tax-to-GDP ratio was 43.5 per cent., and that in the 10 years and a little of Mr. Tony Blair's Governments that ratio was 39 per cent.? Why does the hon. Gentleman not include those figures in his condemnation of the Government?

Tony Baldry: The hon. Gentleman's most ingenious special pleading will not persuade my constituents that taxes are not going up and services are not going down—they see rising taxes and declining services every day. They see that Government borrowing is going up. If the hon. Gentleman had bothered to come in earlier, he would have heard the excellent exposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, who sits on the Treasury Committee. There is absolute chaos; the Government cannot even manage the major economic factors and systems involved in running the Bank of England and managing our banks. Due to the Government, we have had the first run on a national bank since—

Tony Baldry: Since 1878. So a little more humility from the hon. Gentleman would be appropriate.
	To add to our woes, not only are the nation's finances out of control, but unemployment is also increasing; in the past year, it has risen faster in Britain than anywhere else in the western world. Real unemployment—the number of people out of work and on benefits—is now at more than 5 million. Last week, the Sapa group, one of the UK's biggest aluminium producers, announced that it is to close its plant in Banbury, with the loss of 337 jobs. That is a tragedy for every person who will lose their job; it is also a particularly sad time for Banbury, as the Alcan site has been part of the town's soul ever since the aldermen of the borough of Banbury raised the money to buy the original land to attract Northern Aluminium to the town early last century.
	As companies such as Sapa struggle with increased competition from low-wage economies such as China and Malaysia, what is the Chancellor doing? He is adding to the burdens of business. After 15 years of global growth, we should be running a surplus; instead, we are entering what the Chancellor himself admits are difficult times—the Government's borrowing is out of control and they are having to raise ever more taxes.
	Next year, the Chancellor wants to raise a further £2.5 billion in taxes. According to a rule of thumb, £1 billion is about equivalent to a penny in income tax. How is the Chancellor raising that extra tax? He is doing so by hammering businesses, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, and by increasing council taxes. There is an effective 80 per cent. rise in capital gains tax for smaller business—little surprise that the Federation of Small Businesses said that the pre-Budget report was
	"bad news for small business, adding to the tax burden. The chancellor's statement is a huge disappointment for most small businesses still reeling from the increase in corporation tax announced in the last budget."
	The rise in CGT hits particularly hard the owners of the 4.5 million UK firms that employ fewer than 20 staff and contribute half the nation's GDP. Little wonder that the Minister for Trade Promotion and Investment, Lord Jones of Birmingham— [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) may scoff, but the Prime Minister brought Lord Jones into the Government's "big tent". I should be interested in running a sweepstake with the hon. Gentleman on how long Lord Jones remains a member of this Government. I wager that not many months into next year he will resign or find it difficult to keep up collective responsibility, given the Government's economic policies.
	Little wonder that Lord Jones acknowledged that companies regarded the new capital gains tax changes as terrible. He should know, because as the head of the CBI, he warned the Government; as a newspaper article headlined it, "CBI warns Brown: do not tax your way out of slump". However, that is exactly what the Government appear to be doing. What a pity that the Government did not take Lord Jones's advice, given all his experience of business.
	Even the Chancellor now realises that he has cocked up on CGT and he is trying to think of ways to sweeten the pill. As Richard Lambert, the CBI director general, has observed:
	"There are many other businesses and investors who need help as a result of these ill-thought out pre-budget changes."
	The Government's changes to CGT attack business and enterprise. As the Institute of Chartered Accountants in its parliamentary briefing says:
	"This change will create a considerable number of winners and losers. The losers are businesses...The winners appear to be holders of non-business assets, for example second homes, and particularly those who have held non-business assets for a short period".
	So there is a crazy situation, in which the Government are hitting business and those who create jobs and employment and rewarding those who have held non-business assets for a short period. The businesses in my constituency being hit with more tax still have to cope with the ever-increasing burdens of pointless red tape. I hope that the Government will pay careful attention to the Public Accounts Committee's recent report, which demonstrates, for example, how ridiculous it is that owners of new businesses are badgered by numerous different parts of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs all wanting the same bits of information. It is not surprising that the rate of new business start-ups has fallen since 1997. What is the point in the Queen's Speech of the Government saying:
	"A Bill will be introduced to reduce regulatory burdens on business",
	when the Public Accounts Committee clearly shows in its report that they are stifling business with ever more red tape?
	The other group hit by the Government in getting more taxes are council tax payers. This is all pretty cynical on the Government's part. In short, the Government give local councils less grant knowing that they will have to put up council taxes as a consequence; they then hope that local councils and councillors will be blamed, not them. I do not think that people will be conned—they will understand that their local council has been short-changed by the Treasury. Local government has had the worst settlement from the Government in a decade, and that is bound to lead to above-inflation increases in council tax bills.

Tony Baldry: The hon. Gentleman, who, like many others, has just wandered into the debate, would do rather better if, rather than making a point, he sought to identify with the many council tax payers throughout the country who, as a consequence of the Government's local government settlement, will have to pay considerably more of their disposable income in council tax, especially those on low and fixed incomes, but the Liberals do not seem to be particularly concerned about them. One of the interesting things about the opinion polls at present is that they suggest that we can hope to be spared that sort of cheap jibe from Liberal Members in the next Parliament, as we will have fewer of them. More seriously, I hope that the hon. Gentleman, who occasionally seems to take an interest in issues concerning the elderly, would concede that not only has local government been left with a terrible settlement but there is still a substantial hole in funding to care for the elderly, but perhaps he also finds that a matter of mirth.

Tony Baldry: I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again.
	Counties such as Oxfordshire are getting increasingly hacked off that we are paying an ever-increasing amount in taxes and getting an ever-decreasing level of support from the Government. On average, every one of my constituents in north Oxfordshire pays £2,000 more in taxes to the Treasury than the Government spend on providing services to people living in Oxfordshire. In short, we are paying more and getting less. One phrase in the Gracious Speech that that my constituents will find particularly offensive in that regard is:
	"My Government is committed to providing a healthcare system organised around the needs of the patient."
	Horton general hospital in my constituency is facing the threat of a serious downgrading of services whereby, for example, consultant-led obstetric services are to be removed and taken to John Radcliffe hospital. We will no longer have a special care baby unit or 24/7 children's services, notwithstanding the fact that they were introduced following a public inquiry when Barbara Castle was Secretary of State. I do not see how the Government can possibly convince my constituents that a serious downgrading of services at the local general hospital is in some way an improvement in the NHS and a health care system organised around the needs of the patient.
	It is also irksome when we see the Government wasting substantial sums of money locally. On Thursday, the National Audit Office, following a request by me, will publish its report on how the Home Office managed to waste, on its own figures, a phenomenal, staggering £36 million on the project to build an asylum centre at Bicester for 750 asylum seekers. This was always a crazy project condemned by every organisation interested in the welfare of refugees, and it is not surprising that eventually the Government came to their senses and scrapped it. What is surprising is that they squandered millions of pounds on this aborted project, where not a single brick was ever laid nor a single sod ever turned. The Ministry of Defence site where the centre was going to be built is exactly the same now as it was before the Home Office acquired the land. How could it possibly have spent, and wasted, £36 million on doing no work at all? We will probably never know the full truth because, despite the NAO inquiry, it conveniently managed to lose several of the papers relating to where the money has gone, so the NAO was unable to examine them. Like most of the Government's immigration policy, it is a complete shambles. We could have done a considerable amount locally with £36 million. No one can any longer have any confidence in what the Government do on asylum and immigration; they simply have not got a grip. As Martin Wolf observed in  The Financial Times at the weekend,
	"the government seems to have little idea how many immigrants are in the country. It has just had to admit that the number of foreign born workers who arrived since 1997 was 1.5 million. Since 1997, foreigners also seem to have filled more than half of the additional jobs created since 1997".
	How can the Government get the figures so wrong?
	It was somewhat pathetic for the Prime Minister, at the Labour party conference, to bleat about British jobs for British workers. Rather than bleating such meaningless platitudes, he would be better advised to get a grip on skills provision in this country. The consequence of globalisation, as shown only too brutally last week in Banbury with the experience at what everyone locally still considers as Alcan, is that even skilled and experienced workers here are having to compete with Chinese or Malaysian workers, and low-skilled or unskilled workers can no longer find a job because their factory's production has effectively shifted to China.
	The Leitch report on skills made devastating reading, yet the response of the Government and the Prime Minister has merely been confusion at the heart of Whitehall. In a constituency such as mine, much of the training for work is done by the local further education college, but following the Prime Minister's reorganisation of Whitehall, Oxford and Cherwell Valley college of further education remains uncertain as to where FE stands. Is it the responsibility of the Department for Children, Schools and Families or of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills? I wrote to both Departments asking them who is responsible for FE and received identical letters saying:
	"We are consulting on this."
	No one in Whitehall knows who is now responsible for further education. The situation is equally chaotic as regards the learning and skills councils, which fund post-16 education and training.
	Next year, I intend to organise a skills summit in my constituency bringing together local employers and business leaders to ask them what skills they need in the M40 corridor between Oxford and Warwick as we go further into the 21st century. I hope that by next summer the machinery of Government will have sorted itself out so that we know who in the Government is responsible for FE and skills training and we can invite them to the seminar. It is pointless having a Bill on educational opportunity to tackle the question of what are described as NEETs—young people not in education, employment or training—and cutting benefits to youngsters if the Government have no coherence on FE provision, post-16 funding and skills training provision.
	I am not entirely sure as to the purpose of the Gracious Speech from the Throne in the other place when it was almost all trailed by the Prime Minister months before. It has always been clear that a large chunk of the parliamentary Session will be devoted to the consideration of the European treaty. I approach the Lisbon treaty as a pro-European. I want Europe to work. It is in all our interests that the European Union runs smoothly, and it is in all our interests that it is fit for purpose to tackle global challenges such as climate change, terrorism and illegal immigration. But—and this is a substantial "but"—we were promised a referendum and there should be one. Everyone knows that the new treaty is a constitution in all but name. The EU Scrutiny Committee advised that only 2 of the 440 provisions in the treaty differ substantially from the original constitution. The Prime Minister is breaking a promise to put it to a vote, and I fear that people will see the fact that we are not going to have a referendum on the EU treaty as a further example of the Prime Minister's evasiveness.
	The Government say that no referendum is necessary because they have secured a number of exemptions from the treaty that are now being described as red lines. But will those red lines hold? One of the red lines has it that the EU charter of fundamental rights will not affect UK legislation, but that exemption may not be worth the paper it is written on. A number of MEPs have vowed to challenge Britain's exemption in the European Court of Justice, arguing that it violates the principle that EU law must be applied uniformly to all member states. The ECJ has consistently championed the supremacy of EU law, and the new treaty gives it sweeping new powers to rule on cases concerning justice and home affairs.
	The EU Scrutiny Committee has warned that the UK's current exemption from the European working time directive may be challenged in court by other member states. There is no guarantee in relation to the Prime Minister's so-called red lines. We should have a referendum because we were promised one, and as a pro-European I echo what was said by  The Economist, which warned recently:
	"The real danger is of Britain...not having a vote and watching the resentment feed into a movement to get out of the EU. Better to have a vote now.
	I certainly endorse that sentiment.
	We have known for a long time that we will be spending many hours during the Session considering the Climate Change Bill. Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing us all. It is a moral challenge. The Select Committee on International Development, which I chaired during the last Parliament, conducted an inquiry on the impact of climate change on developing countries. Our report concluded that its impact will be felt disproportionately by low-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, because they are least able to manage the shocks of environmental change. This is a moral issue as well as a political one.
	There are three issues at stake. First, although aviation is not the biggest contributor to carbon emissions at the moment, it is estimated that by 2020, carbon emissions from flights will double, especially with the growth of budget airlines. My party proposes the idea of a tax not on passengers but on airlines to encourage full flights, and I am glad to see that the Government adopted that proposal in the pre-Budget report.
	Secondly, there is the need to monitor the reduction of carbon emissions. The Government say that the report on carbon emissions to see whether the UK is meeting its reduction targets should be with Parliament in 2012. That is far too far away. The only way to actively reduce emissions is to actively assess what we are doing to reduce them. Progress reports to Parliament should be made annually, so that we can see where we are and what we need to do to make further progress.
	Thirdly, on the Climate Change Bill specifically, we need annual targets to reduce emissions to meet the 2050 target for a 60 per cent. reduction. Everyone in this House knows that when we do not have annual targets, things simply drift, and the Bill will need to be clearer and bolder if we are to meet the agreed targets.
	One of the few new announcements trailed in relation to the Queen's Speech is that the Government want to extend the time that they can hold suspects without charge to 56 days. It seems to me that the Government are trying to pick numbers out of a hat. It was only in 2005 that Parliament agreed to extend detention without charge to 28 days. They then wanted 90 days. I believe that our freedoms are very precious. They have been won over many years, from the time of Magna Carta, which enshrined the principle that no one should be detained without lawful authority; the concept of habeas corpus is central to our system of criminal jurisprudence.
	We should not allow those who may threaten our security to corrupt our freedom and basic rights. If we do that, they have, in a sense, won something. They will have taken something precious from us. No persuasive evidence has been put to Parliament that we should curb our civil liberties—liberties that have been won over years, and which so many fought and died to defend. Allowing the state to hold people for ever-longer periods of time without charge would mean losing a freedom, which in itself would be something of a victory for those who wish to undermine our freedoms. We should not allow that. Given the introduction of a Constitutional Reform Bill to pave the way for a new bill of rights and responsibilities, it is similarly pointless for the Government to be busy undermining existing hard-won rights and freedoms.
	That brings me to my last point. I am proud to represent the garrison at Bicester. Men from the Royal Logistic Corps have been serving in Afghanistan and Iraq and we are very proud of them. There is understandable concern that the compact between the armed forces and Government is being undermined by poor pay and poor accommodation. Our armed forces are all too often overstretched, and recruitment and retention are being damaged. As we approach Remembrance Sunday, Parliament has to make sure that during the coming Session we spend time focusing on the importance of upholding the nation's military covenant with its service people past and present and their families.
	After 10 years of this Government, the Gracious Speech is a particularly disappointing one. As has been said, it could have come after a general election, which the Prime Minister was hoping to have at one stage before he bottled out. Given that, it is a surprisingly weak and thin speech that does nothing to address the fundamental challenges facing this country. We now see a Government imposing greater and greater tax burdens on individuals, families and businesses, while failing to address the ever-growing issues of globalisation or the threats to the British economy. The Government are simply running out of steam and vision.

Nigel Evans: I am grateful to have this opportunity to take part in the Queen's Speech debate. Like other colleagues, I am somewhat surprised by the attendance on this first day of the debate. I suspect it reinforces the fact that we had heard much of the Queen's Speech well before the Queen graciously delivered it. After all, the Prime Minister had delivered it once, we read about it in the Sunday papers, and again on Monday and this morning, and full copies of it were made available 12 minutes before the Queen graciously delivered it in the other place. Had I been the monarch— [ Laughter. ] If we could just go there for a moment, I would have been tempted to say, "Well, you've heard it all before. I will lay other measures before you, and by the way I'm off to Uganda." And that would have been it. We had seen the contents of the Queen's Speech well in advance. Had the Queen delivered the Address in the way I described, it would have had the virtue of being concise and 100 per cent. accurate. It is disappointing. Like others who are present, I have been a Member of Parliament for a fair few years—[Hon. Members: "Too long."] "Not long enough", I hear people cry. At £5.15, the Queen's Speech probably represents the worst value in Britain. People will not be queuing outside the best bookshops to buy copies tomorrow because it is thin in content, as we all knew it would be.
	One of many problems is the matters that the Queen's Speech does not properly address. Other hon. Members have mentioned devolution. I think that Tony Blair once said that the best thing to do with the West Lothian question was not to ask it. Of course, people, certainly in my constituency, are increasingly asking it. We have a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly and a Northern Ireland Assembly. It is good to see the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in his place. However, when discussing the national health service, people in Ribble Valley get frustrated when drugs are made available north of the border but not in my constituency or other parts of England. They get frustrated when Scottish Members of Parliament—I accept that Scottish National party Members do not vote on English-only legislation—vote on issues that do not affect their constituencies but clearly affect mine. That is a genuine problem, which needs to be tackled at some stage. I hope that it will be taken on board in any constitutional review that the Prime Minister considers. There must come a time when we stop the double dipping of Scottish Members of Parliament who vote on issues that affect my constituency, while we are denied the opportunity of voting on matters that affect theirs.

Nigel Evans: Thank you for your encouragement, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There are flies on me.
	I thank the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) for his intervention. Clearly there is an issue with the Barnett formula. Funding, financing and taxation are matters for the House. However, when we discuss how the money is spent in the Assembly or the Parliament, the devolved institutions must clearly determine that.
	The Loyal Address mentions health. We are considering better health for this country, yet MRSA and C. difficile are genuine problems in our hospitals. I spoke to a constituent the other day who mentioned the problem of patients at the Royal Preston hospital in my constituency crossing the road in their pyjamas, going to the local supermarket to buy things and then returning to the hospital. That will not help the hospital's hygiene; we must address the matter far more diligently to ensure that our hospitals are clean and kept clean 24 hours a day. Patients should not be allowed to wander into the streets, just as nurses or doctors should not leave the hospital environment and go back in again. That must be sorted out.
	Obesity is a ticking time bomb. Many young people, some with parents who are obese, struggle with weight problems. One problem leads to the other. We need to ensure that the school curriculum leaves sufficient time for giving young people the information that they need about exercise and eating properly. That would have an impact on the conduct of the curriculum in England, if not in the devolved institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We should give youngsters and their parents the information that they need to ensure that they get a proper, balanced diet and do not over-eat or over-indulge. Better labelling of food would be a start. Some supermarkets now insist on their suppliers including calorific values on labels. That practice is beneficial and needs to be spread. I rather hope that that could also be made available on menus in restaurants, so that people would have at least a rough idea of the calorific value of the food they ordered. I do not think that is happening anywhere yet, but we should at least give people the information that they need.

Nigel Evans: I wish that there was a stronger lead, because confusion leads to people not being absolutely certain about their intake. The best thing is for the system to be as simple as possible but to give the most accurate information. Personally, I am quite surprised at how high the calorific level of some products on supermarket shelves happens to be, including even fruit. However, if we have the information, at least we can make a start.
	A related issue is that of sport in schools. The Government have made £100 million available so that youngsters can have up to five hours of sport in schools. I stress "up to" five hours because I would prefer youngsters to have exactly five hours, which is an hour an day. They spend more than that in front of the television or the computer, on the couch doing nothing. If they had the one hour of sport a day in school, that structure would be perfect. I am sure that we are all involved with voluntary sporting organisations in our constituencies. They are great, but they are all self-selecting. Those youngsters will always be able to look after themselves, but there are some people who simply need the help through sport within a structure, which they can get in schools but nowhere else. I would ask the Government to consider again whether the £100 million, which is about £12 per pupil per school, is sufficient to spread the programme throughout the whole of the country.
	Finally, on immigration—I am glad to see that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the shadow Home Secretary is here—there are so many misleading statistics that it is worrying. Nobody really knows what the level of illegal immigration is. Nobody knows which people are coming in and which are going out, because neither is being properly checked. We all know that there is a problem with legal immigration, too. The statistics that the Government gave us early on said that when the 10 countries from eastern Europe joined the European Union, we would have about 13,000 immigrants. That figure then became 600,000, and now we have been told that it more than a million. Such levels of immigration are unsustainable. The Government are talking about building 3 million extra homes. I suspect that some of them must be for the extra people in our population, which is now more than 60 million.

Angus Robertson: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) and the fly incident, which we will no doubt all be able to watch replays of on YouTube within a few short hours.
	It is right and proper in a debate on the Queen's Speech to pay tribute to those hon. Members who are no longer with us. As the former next-door neighbour of Piara Khabra—obviously not by constituency, but in Upper Committee Corridor North for the past six years—I should like to place on the record my fond memories of him. He was one of the cheeriest Members of the House and displayed the greatest of humanity whenever one spoke with him about the issues that he cared about.
	In this week of Remembrance Sunday, I should also like to pay the deepest respect, as have others, to those serving in our name in our service community, whether we agree with the conflicts or not—my record on the subject of Iraq is well known. I should also like to recognise the great efforts being made by the Poppy appeals throughout these islands and charities such as Erskine, Combat Stress, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association, and others.
	It would also be right to congratulate the Prime Minister in this debate on his first Queen's Speech since taking office. He has waited a long time to govern and I genuinely wish him well. I am not sure that the Queen's Speech had the content of a vision honed over so many decades, but we will wait and see.
	I should also like to pass on my best wishes to my right hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond), the First Minister of Scotland, who is currently in Sri Lanka as part of the Commonwealth games bid. We hope that he and Steven Purcell, the leader of Glasgow city council, and the delegation will come back having won that bid. That venture illustrates the fact that, where there is a will for bipartisanship in Scottish politics, progress can be made.
	I am delighted to make this contribution to the Queen's Speech debate, my first since becoming leader of the Scottish National party in Westminster. I am mindful that this month is the 40th anniversary of the Hamilton by-election, which marked the start of 40 years of continuous representation by the SNP in this House. I was with Winnie Ewing, who won that important by-election in Scottish political history, last week, and she is still very energetic.
	Unfortunately, it is what is not in the Queen's Speech, rather than what is in it, that causes me, and many others, the greatest disappointment. The proposed constitutional reform Bill is supposed to make government more open, transparent and accountable. However, it does not deal with the West Lothian question, which has been mentioned by many hon. Members. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), who discounts the discrimination felt in England. It is palpable; it exists; it is real. It is there, and all this dancing on a constitutional pinhead about the subject cannot get us away from the fact that there is a gross injustice to English Members in this House. When certain matters are now, rightly, discussed in the Scottish Parliament, English Members are rightly not allowed to take part in those discussions. However, Scottish MPs of all parties are able to cast their votes on matters that might be unpopular in England and might not even have majority support, and win arguments over matters that are devolved. That is an iniquitous situation. Of course, independence for Scotland—and, in consequence, independence for England—would be the most elegant, fair and equitable solution, but in the meantime it is right for the SNP to continue to abstain on English-only matters. I would urge Members of the UK Unionist parties to follow us in so doing.
	The constitutional reform Bill misses a great opportunity to deal with the dispute over funding arrangements in the UK. Conservative Members have expressed a view that Scotland is being subsidised. Why, they ask, should the taxpayers of Penrith and The Border pay for expenditure in Scotland? I do not believe that that is happening. Scotland actually contributes more to the United Kingdom coffers than vice versa. It would be a sad indictment if, after 300 years of this Union, a UK Government had put Scotland in the economic position whereby, despite being the largest oil producer in the European Union, it was a subsidy junkie. Ironically, that is the argument being put forward by Labour and Conservative Members on this matter.
	The elegant solution is independence, but short of that, there is no reason why we should not have fiscal autonomy within the UK. Let us end the debate. Let us end the argument. Let all taxes raised in Scotland be paid to a Scottish finance ministry and, if we remain part of the United Kingdom, let us arrange the level of contribution for shared UK services. That is what happens in the Basque country within the Spanish state. It is a workable model; why is it not being looked at?
	The former leader of the Liberal Democrats, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy), who is no longer in his place, referred to unholy alliances in the context of the constitutional future of these islands. I note with interest that a summit was held yesterday in Edinburgh involving Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. People might talk of unholy alliances, but that would be unfair. I hope that they are all taking part in the national conversation, which was launched by the Scottish Government and which is already the most successful consultation in Scottish Government history. I hope that they are working to put forward constructive suggestions that will result in more powers accruing to the Scottish Parliament.
	The Labour party has now changed its position and joined the other two UK parties in agreeing that the constitutional settlement is not complete. I agree with that. I agree with the UK parties—shock horror! Perhaps that will be the headline in some newspapers. I am pleased that the Scottish Government are prepared to give the people a choice. We hear a lot about that in this Chamber: let the people decide. On all the options—the status quo, more devolution, and independence—we should let the people decide. Unfortunately, however, this matter is not in the constitutional reform Bill, and that is sad. It is sad because the Labour Government have conceded that this is not a finished work; it is a work in progress. Even today, we have seen the Secretary of State for Wales confirm that more powers are being devolved to Wales in a series of policy areas. Of course, the Labour party is in coalition there with Plaid Cymru, the party for Wales, and perhaps Plaid Cymru's positive influence is helping that process. The UK Government must get to grips with these matters sooner rather than later, and not run away from them. The Queen's Speech has missed an opportunity to do that.
	Sadly, we have not been given much detail of what will follow in the legislation, but I have looked through the Queen's Speech to try to work out which issues will be reserved and which will be devolved, and which might be of interest to Members of all parties in regard to what is happening here and what is happening further north. Many Members have mentioned housing today. I have not seen among the details that the Government have promoted whether they intend to freeze the right to buy council houses and to take immediate steps to remedy the housing shortage. I have not seen that in the Queen's Speech, but the Scottish Government have announced that that will happen north of the border. I think that that is a good thing, and I hope that UK Ministers will consider it here as well.
	On health care, we have heard a pledge to meet cancer waiting time targets by the end of this year and to abolish hidden waiting lists. The Government have also announced the raising of the legal age for buying tobacco from 16 to 18 from October 2007. They have also announced a U-turn on the closure of many accident and emergency services. I am not sure whether these measures were in the Queen's Speech, but they are certainly being implemented in Scotland at the moment. Furthermore, NHS staff there are now seeing their full pay deal being backdated and implemented, ahead of the rest of the UK.

Angus Robertson: The hon. Gentleman raises some important points, and no doubt he will take them up with the Scottish Government. He is right to say that the measures on the right to buy relate to new build council housing. I am not acquainted with the issue of St. John's hospital, but I would be happy to discuss it with him later.
	Vulnerable children are discussed in the Queen's Speech, but I have seen nothing about how asylum seekers' children will be treated. I know that, in Scotland, they are to be given the same rights as other children in Scotland, in regard to tuition fees and free nursery provision. That is a good thing, and I should be interested to know what the UK Government are going to do.
	I am glad that the Scottish Government have made a commitment to set a target to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent. by 2050. That is a more ambitious target than the one adopted by the UK Government and I should be interested to know why they have not followed the lead of the Scottish Government in picking a more ambitious target.
	There is a whole series of other matters within the ambit of the Queen's Speech where the Scottish Government have made tremendous strides forward. I hope that UK Ministers will look and learn from what is happening on energy matters and on congestion and road tolling, which has been got rid of for the Forth and Tay bridges. On education, the graduate endowment has been scrapped and an extra £100 million found for universities and colleges, not to mention the piloting of free school meals for years one to three in primary schools. I believe that those are positive measures, in respect of which the UK Government could learn from the SNP Government in Edinburgh.
	Turning to deal with two particular matters in the Queen's Speech that relate to the whole of the UK, I first want to raise the serious issue of anti-terrorism legislation. I say to the Government Front Benchers that we are pleased with the ongoing talks between ourselves, including Plaid Cymru, and the Home Office. I was present at those meetings, which have taken place over the last two weeks. The Government are well aware of the difficulties that our parties have had over the extension of pre-charge detention beyond 28 days—unless appropriate safeguards are in place. I very much hope that the Government return with the supporting evidence to validate the case for detention beyond that time scale.
	The second important matter is the European Union Bill. I see the esteemed Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, on which I serve, in his place. Government Ministers have known for years that, from a Scottish perspective, there is a fundamental problem with the text in the original draft constitution, continuing now with the draft European reform treaty text. It concerns the exclusive competence of the EU over fisheries matters, and the entrenchment of the common fisheries policy within the treaty.
	Anyone who knows anything about the existence of fishing communities since the start of the common fisheries policy knows that it has been the greatest disaster yet in European Union policy making. Yet the UK Government have agreed to the enshrining of the CFP as an exclusive competence within the reform treaty. It was signalled to the Government that unless changes were sought, that would have consequences for the SNP's position—and we should remember that the SNP is the most popular party in Scotland. Should there be a referendum, that matter would hold great weight with the voters of Scotland. That signal has been ignored. For that reason, at its recent conference, the SNP took the view that it would back measures in this House for a referendum. Having committed to it on the constitution, we were honour-bound to do so if the text were not changed on the reform treaty. I signal to the Government now that they have little time left to get changes to the text, which is what they must do if they want to see our position change— [Interruption.] I note that the Minister for Science and Innovation is rolling his eyes; I do not know whether that is because he does not believe that the fishing industry is important or whether he is just bored with the subject.
	Something that the Minister should not be bored with is the matter of political party funding. I am sorry that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who was in his place earlier, is not here now, as an important element to this debate has not to my knowledge been raised thus far. It is well known that the Hayden Phillips inter-party talks have involved the three UK parties to the exclusion of the Northern Ireland parties, Plaid Cymru and the SNP. It became apparent only within recent weeks that the three UK parties were discussing a deal in respect of the state funding element that would see votes for the UK general election weighted at 50p a vote, while elections for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh national Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the European Parliament would be weighted at 25p. It would be helpful if the UK parties clarified their position on whether they believe that that is fair or equitable. The result of instituting that sort of discrimination will, I think, come back to bite them. There are issues around trade union affiliation fees and how they would skew a package, but this issue of the state funding element certainly needs to be looked at.
	I am mindful of colleagues who want to contribute. A number of us made commitments to speak at less length than previous colleagues, who all had excellent points to make. Let me conclude on the point that the Queen's Speech is, sadly, full of missed opportunities—opportunities that could have improved governance in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. From my perspective, representing my party, which always puts the interests of the people of Scotland first, the worst aspect is the omission of any measures to improve Scotland's governance and to give us the ability to accord the Scottish economy a competitive advantage in a globalising world. The absence of measures to achieve that at a time when the UK Government are considering the matter of variable corporation tax in Northern Ireland is beyond me. Those issues need to be and must be looked at.
	The constitutional settlement in the UK is not a finished piece of work, not just because of iniquities in England—which there are—but because there is a demand in Scotland for further powers. There is an understanding in Wales that there have to be further powers for the Welsh National Assembly and its Government. The UK Government need to get their heads around these matters; if they do not, it is the likes of the Scottish Government who will put the matter to the people. If that happened, I believe that we would see an overwhelming vote for the Scottish Parliament to have more powers.

David Amess: This is the Gracious Speech that should never have been. The reason I say that is, as we all know, that there was going to be a general election. Frankly, having listened to the Gracious Speech, I wish that that general election had taken place.
	I would like to make a number of points before going into the detail of the legislation. My right hon. Friend the leader of the Conservative party intervened twice in the Prime Minister's speech. On both occasions, his interventions could not have been more telling. He first asked the Prime Minister to look him straight in the eye and comment on inheritance tax and then again on the general election. The Prime Minister will live to regret his reaction on both those counts.
	I had been looking forward to the end of the Blair years and to welcoming a new era. In a very short space of time, however, I have been somewhat disappointed. I have no doubt that the Prime Minister had intended to call a general election in 2009. I cannot understand how it was that he listened to the advice of people who may not have been in politics for a great length of time, as that put him in a position that has destroyed any reputation that he might have had. As far as I am concerned, the dithering over the general election is the ERM moment for the Labour party. Labour will not be able to have the election in 2009, as originally intended: it will have to go on to the bitter end. The longer this rotten Labour Government go on, the more Labour Members will be concerned about their seats.
	My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was absolutely right when he said that the Prime Minister was treating the general public as if it had no intuition whatever as to what the Labour party was about. The Prime Minister has spun this Government as a new Government. For goodness' sake, the Prime Minister was elected in 1983 and he has been running the Government since it was elected in 1997. There is nothing new about the deputy leader of the Labour party either: she was elected in 1982. The idea that this is a new Government is absolute nonsense.
	There was a wonderful article about the Gracious Speech in one of our national newspapers. It was entitled "What is the point of all this legislation?" The hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) made some similar points earlier. The article stated that today marks "the final curtain" on "the Blair years". It continued:
	"In 10 years, there have been 455 Acts of Parliament... and thousands of statutory instruments".
	There have been
	"reforms of health and education",
	but they have been "piecemeal" and lacked any real "vision". There have been
	"two dozen criminal justice Acts, aimed principally at tomorrow's headlines rather than making the streets safe, the legislative effort should have been expended on proper, lasting and effective reforms of public services. Last week's population figures showed how exposed we now are to our hospitals, schools and transport network being overwhelmed by a greater number of people than was ever planned for."
	It continued:
	"Over the 10 years of Blairism, Labour has brought in six Acts on immigration, seven on terrorism, a dozen on education, 11 on health and social care, and 25 on criminal justice. It has created new crimes at a rate of nearly one a day and passed more than 32,000 statutory instruments."
	That says everything about this Government.
	The article went on:
	"Cleaning hospitals is a laudable ambition, but...three years ago there was a health and improvement Bill, giving new priority to infection control in hospitals. Why did that not work? What is the point of all this legislation—
	including that in the Gracious Speech—
	"if it does not actually make any difference?...most of it is useless. There have been measures introduced in the past 10 years that were repealed before they even came into force."
	This is a Government who have absolutely no direction.
	I want to address eight points in the Gracious Speech in a little detail. First, I shall deal with the proposed constitutional reform Bill. The gap has certainly widened in the balance of power between the Government and Parliament over the past 10 years. Why? It is entirely the result of the former Prime Minister. A balanced working relationship between the two, built on mutual respect and accountability, has increasingly been eroded. Without any doubt, the driving force behind that was Mr. Blair. His presidential style and general disregard for the opinion of both Houses has created the need for a rebalancing of power. My goodness, could not he wait to get out of this place?
	People are no longer keen to participate in democracy and distrust political decision makers. I blame that entirely on the Labour Government and the former Prime Minister. Their emphasis on soundbites and spin has done much to damage Parliament's standing. Having spoken on the first day of every Gracious Speech since 1983, I can say without hesitation that the attendance today is unfortunately an all-time low. Where are the Government Members to support the Queen's Speech? There are nearly double the number of Opposition Members here. The Whips cannot even organise enough Labour MPs to come in and say good things about the Gracious Speech.
	The constitutional reform Bill might appear to some to be an attempt to correct the damage sustained by Parliament as a result of the previous 10 years of Labour Government. It is somewhat ironic, however, that the Bill is proposed by the current Prime Minister, as he served throughout the Blair years, and told Mr. Blair what to do half the time. The present Government wish increasingly to devolve power to local bodies; they should get on with it. They have had 10 years to do something about it, but over that time they have done everything possible to destroy local government. Southend, which I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge), has been undermined by not having enough money to maintain services. If we wanted to put up the council tax, we would be capped.
	Furthermore, I am surprised that the human fertilisation and embryology Bill has not been mentioned, as I am very concerned about it. I spoke during the passage of the 1990 Bill, and many of us who were concerned about allowing experimentation on human embryos up to 14 days have been proved right. The Minister for Science and Innovation shakes his head in disagreement, but the idea that we would put in place the wherewithal to police laboratories to allow experimentation on an embryo of 13 days old, but not on an embryo that is older, is a nonsense. The authority that came into being in 1990 has turned out to be shambolic.
	All the promises made of cures found as a result of experimentation on human embryos have been proved wrong. To date, as Ministers have confirmed in reply to numerous questions that I have asked, extensive embryo research has produced no significant breakthroughs whatever, and nor has embryonic stem cell research. Adult stem cell research, however, has been far more successful. Even at this late stage, therefore, the Government should reflect on the Bill.
	We have a marvellous Freeview television now, on which I saw the Minister with responsibility for public health say to the Science and Technology Committee that there was no scientific evidence to show that Parliament should consider the present law whereby abortion is lawful up to 24 weeks. That was an incredible statement. Before the last general election, when the three then party leaders were asked their view on abortion, they said unanimously that their constituencies had special baby care units that now save babies at 23 and a half weeks, 23 weeks and some even at 22 and a half weeks. We know that those babies have lung development problems and so on, but for the Minister to say to that Select Committee that there were no grounds for reconsidering the matter was extraordinary. I salute my two colleagues who then decided to issue a minority report.
	I pray in aid the words of the noble Lord Steel, the architect of the Abortion Act 1967, who said recently that abortion is being used as a form of contraception in Britain, and admitted that he never anticipated anything like the current number of terminations when leading the campaign for reform. I am therefore fearful of the Government's proposed Bill being used by some parliamentary colleagues to make having an abortion in this country even easier. I believe that if that does happen, a large number of hon. Members will fight, word by word and line by line, to ensure that the abortion laws in this country are not weakened further.
	Then there is the criminal justice and immigration Bill, whose proposals read as a long list of Government failures. I believe strongly that over the last 10 years Britain has become a fundamentally unjust country. It is ridiculous: Home Office Ministers wake up in the morning and decide "We will make another law: we will make something else illegal", although we all know that it is up to chance whether any of those laws are enforced. The criminal justice system has been very badly damaged. Despite the introduction of more than 30 separate criminal justice Acts and the creation of more than 3,000 new criminal offences since Labour came to power in 1997, crime has continued to rise significantly.
	The Government are behaving as if they were still in opposition. The truth about the Labour party is that it is no good in government; its expertise is in opposition. Labour Members are very good at moaning about everything, but what happens when they are given power? If anyone were to ask whether the country is any better today than it was in 1997, the answer would be "Absolutely not", and history will show that the last Prime Minister failed the country very badly.
	Let me say a word about the police. We used to have the best police force in the world, and the best judicial system in the world. Now our police are just like those in the rest of the world, and our judicial system is just like that in the rest of the world. I am sick to death of being invited to go on all-night rides around the town watching what goes on among people who are committing crimes. I have done that. I have been there. I invite those police officers to spend a day with me, as a Conservative Member of Parliament. We know what the problems are, but the solutions are another matter, and I think the "Panorama" programme that we saw during the summer recess was very telling indeed.
	Given the recent behaviour of the chief of the Met over the de Menezes case, his position is absolutely untenable. It is outrageous. If the man running the police force is giving this sort of lead, no wonder officers are in open rebellion. If there is one thing the Government have done that has been more damaging than anything else, it is the way in which they have ruined our criminal justice system.
	Given that we have wasted all this money on the investigation into cash for honours—£1.5 million, we now discover—was it surprising that the Crown Prosecution Service did not proceed? The gentleman who runs the CPS is a staunch Labour supporter, for goodness sake: he was never going to go ahead with the prosecution. I think that when there is a general election, Labour will be judged on that as well.

David Amess: I have no knowledge of such matters, but I do intend to touch briefly on party-political funding, and the hypocrisy surrounding that particular issue.
	Over the last 10 years, it has become very plain that the Government do not have a clue about immigration. We no longer have controls over our borders, and the system is an absolute shambles. Anyone who has arrived at Heathrow airport recently will have been subjected to the queues that grow ever longer as the Government—presumably—begin to panic over the situation. A sensible and carefully considered immigration policy is clearly beyond their capability. In contrast, recent remarks by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition about the importance of a well-balanced immigration debate were praised by the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Mr. Trevor Phillips. I had never considered Mr. Phillips to be a known supporter of the Conservative party.
	The Gracious Speech also features a counter-terrorism Bill. Every Member in the House knows that we face a huge security challenge. I do not have a solution to the situation where someone is prepared to take their own life so that others lose their lives. I cannot think of any sort of deterrent. All of us are struggling to come up with a solution but I say again that I will regret for ever more that I voted for the war with Iraq. I believe that it is now permissible for me to say that the former Prime Minister, Mr. Blair, said things at the Dispatch Box that I believed, which is why I voted the way I did, and we now know those things not to be true. I much regret that I did not join my 18 colleagues and vote against that measure, but all of us will support the Government in trying to combat the threats that we face from terrorism. However, I certainly am not keen on extending the powers of detention beyond the present 28 days. That seems against the British spirit of common justice.
	After those gloomy words, I am going to welcome two Bills in the Gracious Speech: the Climate Change Bill and the energy Bill. I and many hon. Members receive a huge amount of correspondence and campaign cards on those issues. Climate change is having and will have a huge impact on us all. Never has the need been so pressing to find effective ways of reducing carbon emissions and at the same time of ensuring that those efforts are not to the detriment of our economic growth and competitiveness. I am delighted that Mr. Gore has received his honour but when I look back on the Clinton- Gore years—the pair of them ran the United States of America for eight years—I am a little puzzled as to why, when it came to the point when they could have done something, it seemed that American business stopped them. Anyway, we all welcome sinners who repenteth.
	I have long been an advocate of promoting energy efficiency as a means of reducing environmental impact. I am proud to say that I introduced what became the Warm Homes and Energy Conservation Act 2000 in order to alleviate fuel poverty by providing domestic insulation and other energy-efficiency measures. Of course I am not particularly pleased that the target year seems to be slipping, but there we are—that is the way of the Government these days.
	The Bill that I piloted through effectively championed the benefits of maximising the energy produced by the burning of fuels for domestic heating. The Bill had as a central theme the enormous benefits that can result from efficient use of energy. Thousands of people throughout the United Kingdom have benefited from that private Member's Bill. I welcome the measures in the Bill proposed in the Gracious Speech that seek to reduce our carbon emissions and yet make provision for the need to maintain our overall economic performance. I believe, however, that to be a robust and effective piece of legislation the Climate Change Bill should include a genuinely independent body to set targets and not merely to monitor them. There should be provision for rolling year-on-year targets and an annual carbon budget report, with any new measures being subject to approval in Parliament.
	I welcome the provisions in the local transport Bill in that they are designed to give local authorities the right mix of powers to improve the quality of local bus services, but my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) and I have a challenge as far as local buses are concerned because we do not have too many in Southend. The reason for that is that the Government—we have the former Deputy Prime Minister to thank for this—have starved Southend of money through the local government finance settlement. Local authorities must be empowered to make the decisions on local matters that they, and not central Government, have the background knowledge to make. Having long been in consultation with my local authority on public transport issues, I know precisely what Southend-on-Sea borough council would like to see in that Bill.
	The Government have introduced a number of public transport initiatives, but they have often failed to support them with adequate funding. The national concessionary fares scheme is part-Government, part-local authority funded. However, Southend-on-Sea borough council is struggling to fund the local scheme, as the Government grant is simply not a significant enough contribution to enable us to take that measure forward. The Government must not leave councils to fund initiatives that they instigate. The Bill on this issue must address the funding inequalities that are undermining the concessionary fares scheme in Southend. It must ensure a level playing field for negotiations between local authorities and bus companies, and help local authorities to deal with unruly and intimidating behaviour on public transport. The public are often discouraged from using public transport, especially at night, as they fear the behaviour of certain individuals. Local authorities must be given help in order better to tackle antisocial behaviour on public transport, and help to ensure that such services are accessible to all.
	I know that the Gracious Speech suggests that other Bills will be introduced, but I am very disappointed that there is no certainty about a marine Bill and a Bill on copyright and associated miscellaneous provisions, which would receive widespread support. I welcomed the introduction last year of a draft marine Bill, which was designed to offer protection to marine environments. However, it suffered severe delays to its progress during the last Session, and the Government appear to have failed to come forward with a new such Bill for the new parliamentary year. I recently participated in a wonderful campaign, organised by the Wildlife Trust—the local launch was at Chalkwell junior school—to lobby the Government to include a marine Bill in their list of priority Bills. Youngsters are particularly enthusiastic about such a Bill, and I urge the Government to rethink their commitment to this legislation.
	Earlier this year, under the ten-minute rule, I introduced a Copyright (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which I understood the Government were very much in favour of. It was intended to tackle the growing problem of internet piracy that is costing the British music industry millions of pounds in lost revenues each year. Online copyright theft and its impact on the music industry and associated British artists is a seriously pressing issue, and I am rather disappointed that the Government have not introduced a measure to assist in that regard.
	The hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) mentioned cash for peerages earlier, and it is suggested in the Gracious Speech that measures will be introduced to sort out political funding. I find this a disingenuous debate. I voted against the £10,000 that has been made available to all Members of Parliament to—let us be frank about this—promote themselves. Of course, it will help Members in marginal constituencies. Such things cannot be party political, so endless photographs will be taken of them and reference will be made to how wonderful they are; these will be all-singing, all-dancing affairs. Now that there will not be a general election until 2010, those Members will have three years in which to spend taxpayers' money making themselves more cuddly to constituents.
	The Labour party has been angered by the fact that a Conservative peer is giving a little bit of money to various candidates throughout the country, so the Labour Government are introducing legislation on this issue. However, it is interesting to note that we have not heard any details about the trade union support of Labour Members. We all know that, frankly, many trade unionists are staunch Conservatives. It is very wrong if the Government intend to introduce legislation that does not deal with the Labour party funding of individual candidates in general elections.
	There is nothing new about the Government. They are a failed Government. They are an incompetent Government. They are a rotten Government. If the Prime Minister is so confident, as he appeared to be at the Dispatch Box today, why did he not call a general election last month?

Paul Burstow: I want to pick up on a couple of the points that the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) has been talking about, particularly the last one about the arms race that exists between political parties in terms of election expenditure and pre-election expenditure. Surely what we need is some form of cross-party consensus. Surely that is what the talks that were going on were trying to achieve. It seems a pity that those talks have foundered, rather than carrying on to try to find a way to reach some conclusions. It is an interesting use of the word "little" in respect of Lord Ashcroft's contribution of financial largesse to the Conservative party.

Roger Williams: Indeed. Citizens throughout the nation are intent on playing their part in contributing to the control of carbon emissions, and when they see the Government backing down on their targets they feel that they have been let down.
	The Government have been forced by the High Court to consult twice on the energy White Paper, and environmental groups still have major concerns about the second consultation document, which has been accused of misleading the public over radioactive waste. By the time that the two Welsh nuclear power stations are fully decommissioned, they will have generated 150,000 cu m of radioactive waste in Wales alone—enough to fill 60 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Decisions will have to be made on where to store all that waste. Nuclear power is still unproven as regards waste disposal and whether it can be brought on quickly enough to combat climate change. It is a waste of money when compared with genuinely sustainable and clean forms of electricity generation. Putting millions of pounds into new nuclear power stations will stifle the growth of renewables, in which we need to see greater investment. We want an energy Bill that gives Wales a chance to say no to nuclear. The National Assembly should have the power to decide on new power projects and the Government should listen to the requests of the Assembly and have the courage to devolve that power to it. The Assembly should also have the power to put in place tougher building regulations in Wales to ensure that all new build must be built to higher levels of energy efficiency. I look forward to seeing such provisions in the Bill when it is published.
	The Queen's Speech presented many other opportunities to devolve power to the National Assembly, but sadly it looks as though the Government plan to ignore them. The planning reform Bill is one such opportunity. As I understand it, the Bill will take planning decisions on major developments, such as new power stations and large-scale renewable energy developments, away from UK Ministers and put them in the hands of an infrastructure planning commission. The commission is likely to have two or three members from Wales, but decisions will still be made outside the country by an unelected, appointed body—a quango. Labour in Westminster has effectively ignored the request from the Assembly to devolve decisions on large energy projects. Where is Labour's commitment to devolution and local decision making?
	Yet again, it is a major disappointment that there is no marine Bill in the Queen's Speech. We have been promised a Bill since 2002, and it was a manifesto commitment in 2005. Ministers finally published a White Paper in March, and progress is painfully slow. Labour has had plenty of time to get a Bill ready for the Queen's Speech, but it looks as though, yet again, we will see only a draft Bill, rather than the real thing. A marine Bill could devolve marine planning to the Assembly, creating a single spatial planning system so that Wales can make full use of its offshore energy potential so that unique areas such as Cardigan bay get the environmental protection that they deserve.
	While Ministers drag their heels on environmental issues, they rush to get more Home Office legislation on the statute book. The counter-terrorism Bill will be the 60th Home Office Bill since 1997, and so far new Labour has created more than 3,000 new offences. The contrast could not be more stark, and Ministers will have a tough task demonstrating that creating more criminal offences is a necessary and useful way to counter the terrorist threat.
	The Prime Minister could have used his first Queen's Speech to make a dramatic statement on fairness in public spending throughout the UK by introducing legislation to reform the unfair Barnett formula. With the Assembly currently reviewing the formula, and given Lord Barnett's own public recognition that the formula is out of date, the time is right for a change. The crude population-based formula simply fails to take account of Wales's needs. On the key Government measure of poverty—gross value added—Wales performs more poorly than any other United Kingdom nation or region. We have a post-industrial legacy of ill health to cope with and a higher level of average mortality and cancer rates. Much of our population is spread over large rural areas with obvious consequences for public services on the cost of delivery.
	Lord Barnett originally developed the formula as a temporary measure, but successive Governments have backed away from reviewing it as he envisaged and Wales has suffered the most from this unfair system. This new Government with a new Prime Minister have had over 130 days to review the formula and start consulting on change. If the Prime Minister believed in social justice, it should have been a priority for him to make a start on the process of reforming the formula as soon as he came to office, but we are still waiting.
	On the theme of devolving further power and responsibility to Wales, several Bills could devolve framework powers to the Assembly to extend its competence in specific areas, such as the education and skills Bill, the health and social care Bill and the housing and regeneration Bill.
	Last Session, the Further Education and Training Bill caused controversy when it failed to grant the Assembly the competence to give Welsh further education colleges the power to award foundation degrees. Many Welsh Members of Parliament were concerned that that was hidden in the Bill and that there was little time to debate the significant omission.
	The Wales Office has now promised briefing sessions on future Bills that contain framework powers, and that is welcome. However, it would be helpful if it issued a written statement for each Bill that contains framework powers, giving details of the way in which the measure would extend the Assembly's competence. That would help us avoid the confusion that we experienced in the previous Session with the Further Education and Training Bill.
	In this Session, the first legislative competence orders will come from the Assembly, but the protocol for the way in which Members of Parliament scrutinise the orders remains unclear. Any extension of the Assembly's powers is welcome but the process would have been far simpler if the Government had introduced a stronger Government of Wales Act in the first place, giving Wales the same powers as the Scottish Parliament rather than creating the current intricate and baffling system.
	The Queen's Speech is silent on rural affairs. We recently had an adverse report from the Office of Fair Trading about the supermarkets' pricing of milk in 2001-03. The Competition Commission's recent report advocated a consultation on establishing an ombudsman for the food trade. It would have been encouraging if the Government had mentioned in the Queen's Speech the possibility of setting up such a system, which would give more strength to the code to which supermarkets must adhere.
	I want to speak briefly about two other important omissions from the Government's programme. A Liberal Government started the process of Lords reform in the Parliament Act 1911. In the previous Session, Members of Parliament overwhelmingly backed plans for an elected upper Chamber. The constitutional reform Bill must take forward the reform of the upper Chamber to make it fit for the 21st century.
	The proposed pension Bill appears likely to stop short of taking the crucial step to reduce and end means-testing for the state pension. Wales's pensioners deserve a citizens pension, with a restored earnings link that guarantees a stable income for all and restores the incentive for people to save.
	For those reasons and many others, I shall vote against the Queen's Speech.

Ben Wallace: It is important to remember that many of the men and women who stood duty outside the House for the ceremony for the opening of Parliament today have just returned from conflict in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere. Although the ceremony is rather ignored by the public, it is an important part of what we do. I pay tribute to the soldiers who made the ceremony what it was and performed to the highest professional standards.
	Unfortunately, the Queen's Speech did not match those standards. I am always surprised to hear Her Majesty the Queen use a new Labour turn of phrase when she reads out the speech. It is getting better in her 10th year of reading it—she obviously likes phrases such as "inclusion", "step change" and "working in partnership". Doubtless it will be our privilege one day to ensure that her speech is of a slightly different tone.
	I want to consider several Bills, which I believe to be important. The constitutional reform measure is clearly important, but the elephant in the room is the West Lothian question. I am a former Member of the Scottish Parliament and I therefore sat in a devolved Parliament at the beginning, in 1999. I am acutely aware of the constitutional settlement and that, as a Member of the Scottish Parliament, I could discuss anything from hunting to education in my Parliament, as it was at the time. The people of Scotland had a choice—funnily enough, in a referendum, for which the Government provided—and more than 70 per cent. made the decision.
	In this House, I am the second-class Member of Parliament; the second-class citizen. It is unfair of the Government to pretend that that is not the case. I cannot ask questions about hospital policy in Kirkcaldy, Paisley or anywhere else north of the border, but Members of this House who represent those constituencies can ask about hospital policy in my constituency. That democratic deficit and constitutional imbalance must be solved because I am a Unionist. I do not follow the end agenda of the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) and the Scottish National party. I do not want the United Kingdom to break up. I went into the Scottish Parliament as a Conservative and Unionist, to try to ensure that the United Kingdom was a stronger place.
	I remember that the Government claimed that devolution would see off the nationalists. That was one of their main claims. The late Donald Dewar used to say that the nationalists would be finished with devolution. It is interesting that we have a First Minister in Scotland who is from the Scottish National party and that, if my understanding is correct, there is power sharing with a Welsh nationalist in the Welsh Assembly. The nationalists are certainly not dead; they are alive and kicking.
	As the consequence of a vandalised constitution and an unfinished project, I see English nationalism on the rise, and I am not a nationalist; I am a Unionist. Unless we face those issues and try to find a solution, the Union will not last in its current form. To attack hysterically any offerings from the opposition parties—from the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives—as meaning the break-up of the Union is to raise the level of hysteria in a way that will only feed English nationalism and encourage the nationalists in Wales and Scotland to stoke it up. The Government need to be mature on the issue. There is a democratic deficit that must be put right, but the constitutional reform Bill simply skips that issue.
	We do not know the details, although no doubt the Government will offer us regional grand committees as a sop, but that is not the solution. I implore the Government to be grown up about the debate in the next year. If they are not and if they are not prepared to discuss the whole United Kingdom, I fear that we will end up with a bodge job and we will be attacked for asking the West Lothian question. That is not surprising, because Scottish Labour, which I saw in action in the 1980s and 1990s, used to go round Scotland saying that everything from the Conservative Government was anti-Scottish. It did not say that the policies were against people from low-income backgrounds, nor did it attack them on their merits or failings; it attacked them as being anti-Scottish. Scottish Labour persuaded the Scottish people that anything that came out of Whitehall was, in the end, anti-Scottish. That is why the percentage voting for the Scottish National party is now about 30 per cent. Scottish Labour persuaded enough people in Scotland to think that perhaps independence is the right way to go.
	Should the Conservative party come to power because we have more MPs in England, my fear is that the Scottish Labour party will resort to type and go back to its old ways, instead of saying, "Well, in the United Kingdom you take the rough with the smooth." In the 1970s the Wilson Government was, in effect, imposed on England by Labour MPs. Again today, the Labour majority is made up of Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs. We could easily spend our lives going round saying to the English, "It'd never happen, you know, if we just get rid of Scotland and Wales," but we do not say that. One has to take the rough with the smooth in the United Kingdom. The problem with the current devolution settlement is that it was peddled by saying, "You'd never get the Tories in Scotland if you had a Scottish Parliament," but the Government have not thought it through.
	I hope that there are measures in the constitutional reform Bill to beef up pre-legislative scrutiny. One of the good things about the Scottish Parliament was that pre-legislative scrutiny was the de facto procedure. It was not in the hands of the Government to decide not to have it. I would like more of that. I would like a beefed-up Intelligence and Security Committee that has a power of investigation and is responsible to the House, not the Prime Minister. We will face more and more measures dealing with national security, so we need the confidence that the House has a handle on the security services and the agencies that will inevitably become ever more powerful. The Serious Organised Crime Agency is responsible to only one person, the Home Secretary, and is totally unaccountable to any democratic review. We must beef up the Intelligence and Security Committee.
	This leads me to the proposed counter-terrorism Bill. It is amazing, given that the Government's proposals for longer detention without trial were rejected, that they have returned to the issue. They say that this is because more and more people say that they need to do so, but the evidence is not there yet. The Government have not presented any evidence that there are terrorists out there who need to be held for longer than 28 days without charge. We were told that control orders were going to be a great success, yet three of the 18 people being held under them have absconded, so they are not much cop. Why should we believe the Government this time if they could not get it right the first time?
	I worked in counter-terrorism, and I can tell the House that locking people up without trial will lose the Government the consent of the community. Without that consent, they will not be able to recruit informers or to counter terrorism in the long run. Their proposals represent another short-term short cut, so that they can say that they are doing something about counter-terrorism. The United Kingdom already has the longest detention period without trial in the western world. We are the only ones doing this, so why do we want more? If the Government start to imprison people from the tight-knit Muslim communities in my constituency for longer periods, their sources will dry up. I have yet to see much evidence that suggests otherwise.

Ben Wallace: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for pointing that out, but we have already had a debate, and the Government lost. A sizeable number of Members from his party voted against the Government. Nothing significant has changed since then. The county of Lancashire, which I represent, has a very high proportion of terrorist suspects and terrorist-traced individuals, but there is no evidence that the way to solve that problem in the long term, or even the medium term, is to start sweeping people into jail. I would be amazed to see a jury convict anyone on the strength of a confession or statement made after 90 days' detention without trial. I can just imagine a judge being told, "Well, your honour, after three months, he admitted it." I cannot see any jury convicting on that basis.
	I will be interested to see the result of the Government's review of the admissibility of wire-taps as evidence. I know that there has also been a review of special branch, and of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which could certainly do with some fine-tuning.
	The Government are proposing a Bill on the EU treaty. I am a European; I am pro-European Union. I was not old enough to vote on the issue the first time round—I was three, I think—but I certainly feel that we have now been promised a referendum. I remember attending the European convention on the treaty. I was a member of the Scottish Parliament's European Select Committee at the time. When the Labour Member who was on that convention says that she feels strongly that there should be a referendum, and that this is the same treaty by another name, it is important that the Government should honour that manifesto commitment.
	What I find disingenuous is the nuclear option. The one thing that makes me a Eurosceptic is when people say, "Well, if you don't like it, you'll have to leave." We do not have to leave. We do not have to take what is on the table from the European Union. We can tell it to go back and think again, as the French and the Dutch did. If the treaty does not provide the policy solution that is right for the United Kingdom, we do not have to leave the European Union. We do not walk out of Parliament if we lose a vote on a Bill, saying that we are not coming back into the House of Commons again. The European Union is a forum in which member states should come together and agree on what they can agree on. It is trickery to treat the people of this country like fools and to say that it is all or nothing. It is not. The French and the Dutch knew that, and I am sure that the Irish and the Danish know it, because they often decide to send provisions back.
	We should ensure that the Government honour their manifesto commitment. They made a promise to the people, which is important. I am a supporter of the European Union, so please do not insult my intelligence by making it the "all or nothing" option. My electorate will spot that; they will know that that is an insult; they already know that this is the same treaty. The only people who pretend that it is not are members of the Government.
	Let me deal with something closer to home, which remains important. I hope that appropriate legislation will include measures to deal with it. I represent Lancaster and Wyre, which has the biggest concentration of residential park homes and holiday residences in the country. To give credit to the Government, they have been very supportive through their officials of my efforts to get at these rogue traders who run some of the parks. I have some excellent park homes in my constituency, but there are also some appalling ones. We need a licensing regime that is enforceable and can deal with the real crooks throughout the country who exploit vulnerable people by making them buy without proper contracts or by threatening to tow them off parks and so forth. Local authorities can be faced with one option: withdraw the licence and end up with 300 homeless people from those sites. Some of these individuals are real rogues and we need to deal with them. I had a summit, which Government officials attended, at Wyre borough council, but the gap in legislation is the problem. I hope that any Bill will include measures to say that this is an enforceable regime and that if rogue operators do not comply with it, their licences or livelihoods will be taken away.
	Other manifesto commitments have still not been met. Generally, many speakers this evening have said that there is nothing new in the Queen's Speech. There is nothing exciting about it. For a Prime Minister who has spent 10, 12 or 15 years waiting for the day, it seems a rather boring programme. It is a programme brought to us by the Government's backroom boys, because the backroom boys of the past have now become the front-room boys: the Foreign Secretary, the Education Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development. They are married to the soundbite and the headline; they are not married to the delivery of policies. So much of what we have seen today is either a copy of other parties' policies or an attempt to put right their own policies without taking any of the bold steps that could or should be taken. There is not much new in any of this. If this is what the new Prime Minister bases his credibility on, I am afraid that it will be a pretty disappointing year for him—and even more disappointing at the polls.
	Debate adjourned.— [Tony Cunningham.]
	 Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Keith Vaz: I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the issue of restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian citizens who wish to come to the United Kingdom to work. Since my application for this debate, the Government announced their decision last week, after a 10-month review, to retain the restrictions placed on migrant workers from Bulgaria and Romania. However, it is important for us to debate why the Cabinet reached that conclusion, as well as to examine the wider issues surrounding the emotive immigration debate.
	I am pleased to see the Minister for Borders and Immigration on the Front Bench. He is a very pleasant and cheerful man, who has to do a very unpleasant job. It cannot be easy to say no all the time. Despite being cheerful and happy, he is, as we say, a tough cookie as far as immigration policy is concerned.
	On 1 January 2007, Romania and Bulgaria became members of the European Union—a move championed by Britain for many years. On 4 May 1999, the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, became the first British Prime Minister to address the Romanian Parliament. During his historic speech, he announced:
	"Britain wants the European Union to enlarge... I want Romania to be part of that process."
	At this point, may I pay tribute to our ambassador in Bucharest, Robin Barnett, who has done a tremendous amount of work to build the excellent relationship between Britain and Romania? May I also commend the efforts of Raduta Matache, the chargé d'affaires of the Romanian embassy in London, who has been relentless in her pursuit of equality for Romanians?
	On 1 May 2004, the United Kingdom was one of only three countries that decided not to impose any restrictions on the A8 countries. Without a doubt, those who have come from Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia have made a great contribution to our country. From Ealing to Glasgow, and from Leicester to Hull, citizens from eastern Europe have added to our country economically, socially and culturally. Like the vast majority of original EU member states, Britain chose to put restrictions on the A2, which require that their citizens gain authorisation from the Home Office before they start work. The accession of the A8 and the A2 appears not to have had any significant negative impact on the British economy or the jobs market. Added to that have been many positive responses from companies such as FirstGroup, which says that the economy and its businesses are in need of more migrant workers.
	On 2 October 2007, following a visit by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, I visited Bucharest to assess for myself the impact that restrictions were having on workers from Romania and Bulgaria. I also had the opportunity to meet the Romanian Prime Minister, Calin Popescu-Tariceanu, and other Ministers. Foreign investment in Romania is at an all-time high, as is employment, with only 2 per cent. of people in Bucharest unemployed. Romania's 5.8 per cent. average annual economic growth over the past five years makes it one of Europe's fastest-growing economies. The most prevalent problem now is the shortage of skilled and unskilled labour, with some estimates calculating that as many as 10 per cent. of Romanian citizens live abroad. It would seem logical that the Romanian Government would welcome the UK restrictions, as they would encourage Romania's citizens to stay at home.
	For the Romanians, however, the matter is one of principle. If they are equal members of the EU, they should be full members, and not treated as second-class citizens. The restrictions have made the Romanians believe that in the eyes of the UK and the rest of the EU they are not equal partners. The Home Affairs Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing, will examine the issue on 27 November. The Romanian Government have agreed to give evidence at the session, and we look forward to seeing the Minister on that occasion.
	The decision to retain the restrictions must be seen against the background of a wide range of issues and debates surrounding immigration. To find out why the restrictions were retained, it is vital that we ask the question: why are we still afraid of immigration?
	At the end of October this year, the Home Office published a report entitled, "The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Immigration". The publication made a number of key points, the most significant being the finding that £6 billion a year of growth is attributable to migrants. It was also found that
	"in the long run it is likely that the net fiscal contribution of an immigrant will be greater than that of a non-immigrant",
	that,
	"Concerns that native workers would be displaced by migrant workers...seem ill-founded, as migrant workers appear to have complementary skills to the native labour force",
	that,
	"Viewed overall...research finds a small positive effect of immigration on the wages of native workers",
	and finally that,
	"Research provides little or no evidence that migrant labour has had a significant impact on employment prospects for native workers."
	A report produced by the Institute for Public Policy Research established that less than 1 per cent. of migrant workers have applied for income-related benefits since 2004, and that most eastern European migrants are working in jobs that are hard to fill, notably in the public services. The TUC has enthusiastically agreed with those findings.
	On 1 November 2007, the Local Government Association published a report examining the effect that immigration has had on public services. It found that the current immigration process had had a negative effect on the way in which some public services operate, to varying extents. The fundamental problem appears to be not immigration itself but implementation, and the way in which funding is allocated. The LGA suggests that local services struggle because they are not given the money that they need to serve the number of people who use them, as the allocation is based on the national census, which does not include the majority of immigrants. The LGA sensibly suggests that the solution is to create a central pot of money for which local authorities can apply when experiencing a higher-than-average number of migrants. It also calls for a more efficient way of counting the number of immigrants in the country.
	The key is to confront our fear of immigration, an issue so potent that only this week the Conservative candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis was forced to resign his candidacy over his comment that
	"Enoch Powell was right... warning that uncontrolled immigration would change our country irrevocably."
	Immigration has changed our country, but not into rivers of blood; rather into bridges of hope. In London we have more than 300 different nationalities living side by side. That is why we have been awarded the honour of hosting the Olympic games in 2012, and why the internal cultural conflict predicted by Enoch Powell was so wrong. London's diversity has made it the cultural and financial capital of Europe. I believe that the fear of immigration that we experience is a result of faults in the system, faults that, in my view, can be resolved.
	Last week the Department for Work and Pensions apologised for erroneous immigration figures. My concern—and, I think, that of my fellow citizens—is that those erroneous figures may have been used in the process of setting Government policy. If the Government's statistics are wrong, how can their policies be right? The British public have a right to expect accurate figures. It is entirely wrong that such a serious mistake was made in an area that is so emotive and sensitive.
	That error has understandably had an effect on the public's confidence in the way in which immigration is dealt with in this country. It is vital that we establish who is here by counting immigrants in and out of the country: only then can proper decisions be made.
	There is now a consensus that, as a small island, Britain is not able to cope with an unlimited number of immigrants, and the newly named Border and Immigration Agency appears to be unable to cope with the modern immigration situation. It is vastly under-resourced, understaffed, and—as the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid) commented—"not fit for purpose".
	I have constituents who have been waiting for up to four years for a response to their applications. That is unacceptable to the Home Office and the country, as well as to the applicants themselves. Applicants deserve an answer, and if they have no right to stay in the United Kingdom they need to be removed quickly. I must add that I myself have waited for four months to meet the Minister to discuss individual cases. Such delays are unacceptable.
	We should be asking our European neighbours to play a larger role, and to construct and engage in a process to deal effectively with illegal immigration. We are constantly made aware of the problems that exist in Calais, with immigrants attempting to enter the UK illegally. Only this September we heard reports of the French police raiding homes and squats in Calais with tear gas, attempting to find illegal immigrants. There has to be a better way. Secure borders will give the public greater confidence in our immigration system, and they will be less resentful of those who are here legitimately.
	There has also been talk recently of the importance of British jobs for British people. I worry about that statement. It lacks credible arguments, and some have suggested that it appears to amount to little more than employment apartheid. It assumes that foreign workers are somehow stealing jobs from United Kingdom workers, an idea for which there is absolutely no evidence. It also raises the question: how do we ensure that jobs are going to British people and what do we classify as British? If someone has another citizenship but they have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, they have a right to work.
	Hopes are falsely raised whenever "British jobs" are mentioned. Every position that is filled will require justification and an account kept of how many British jobs there are. The fact is that, in this country, over the past century, we have entered into many agreements with European and Commonwealth countries, which means that we are obligated under treaties, rightly, to give jobs to people who are not British, based on merit.
	I am still shocked at the way in which we reversed our position on the highly skilled migrant workers programme. There are Indian and other citizens who came to this country to work hard and to help our economy, and they have been treated very badly.